The House of a Thousand Dead Suns
by SassySizzleMonster
Summary: Happiness is such a fickle thing, especially to those deserving of it. [OC-Insert; Post-Uchiha Massacre]
1. Bad Things Happen to Good People

**A/N:** So this story has themes some won't be comfortable with. It involves a character who committed suicide as an out for all of the problems her life had previously, and because of that, she's not in the right mindset at the beginning. Bare with me, but the story isn't going to be very sad despite this. I like stories about hope and happiness, so although it'll have a sad start, it won't end that way. If you don't like that, and you're here for angst and tragedy at the end this ain't for you (except the angst part, there's a lot of that). FYI, I'm not writing this to fetishize suicide or other things. I genuinely like happy stories, and it's usually the ones who have it the worst that need it the most.

Still, trigger warning for those who can't stand: mention of non-con, sexual abuse, and suicide. There is _no_ rape described, but it is mentioned.

* * *

 **寸善尺魔**

* * *

She'd been tired. Oh so tired.

So why were her eyes opening when she should have been dead? When the world should have been nothing and she should have been weightless in the after life. Or at the very least, nothing at all.

Yet, her eyes opened and she blinked wearily at the overhead lighting while hearing the dim rush of wheels and the shouting of unintelligible words being called back and forth between people she couldn't seem to focus on with her ears ringing. It was strange the way they spoke, and her fuzzy head couldn't place why. They sounded different, or maybe it was the blood rushing to her head—if she had any left.

Maybe her living simply wasn't over yet, and she was still dying. She knew well enough that the sounds around her were distantly like a hospitals. For some reason people were still trying as if the world gave a damn if she breathed or not. She certainly didn't, so whether they were doctors and nurses trying to save her worthless life, or just passerby's going about their day on the train tracks she'd ended everything on, she didn't care.

As she slipped into a dizzy sleep, she held to the hope they'd fail. That this was it, because it would be too painful otherwise.

* * *

 **寸善尺魔**

* * *

When she woke up she cried, big fat tears that rolled down her cheek and descended until it hit the white cotton of her sheets.

She couldn't help it; the tears just came flowing out in ways they'd never had before, as if she'd never grown used to holding them back in the first place.

But there she was, in the unfamiliar hospital bed balling her eyes out, and if anyone asked she couldn't explain _why_ they came, and people would just assume anyways. Even if by some miracle they didn't, no one would believe her—because no one had before—the things that happened to her, the things she'd tried to escape from, and yet there she was in the bed—alive.

She felt the pounding of her heart acutely, could hear the pumping of her blood to the point of nausea coiling in her gut.

If she were lucky _he_ wouldn't find her, and she would be okay for just a while. This would be a sort of refuge before she attempted it again, but this time she'd jump from the roof or something cheesy like that. It would certainly hurt a lot less than by train, that's for damn sure.

By the time her hysterics were partly over, and she could breath through the fear and tears, she looked around her hospital room and froze at how disoriented she was, and then when she continued, she paused once more when she brought her hands to her eyes and she frowned.

Were her hands always that thin and pretty? Or that pale in color? She'd been rather tan . . . it could be blood loss, or maybe she'd been out for longer than she thought and she'd lost weight and lacked the sun as a result. She looked down at her chest and she eyed it for half a minute.

 _Where are my boobs?_ she asked herself, and received no answer while she withdrew the scratchy covers on her, surprised by the lack of utter pain in her body. By her wholeness. Then she twisted her waist, and _yup, there it fucking was._ She keeled over for a moment, trying to catch her breath as she fumbled over her gown to draw it back. Confusion raced through her mind, wondering if she hadn't been hit as savagely as she'd assumed upon impact. She thought for sure she'd die instantaneously. But she hadn't, obviously.

She thought her body would be in pieces by the time the train would stop, but instead she could only feel her wounds in her heart where it always seemed to hurt of phantom pains, more along her sides than anything. She pulled back her hospital gown, fighting the pain and looked at the white bandaging all along her torso and across her upper chest. She must of been on some really strong pain medication to not feel half of it. Perhaps she'd been chopped in half, and through some crazy new medical sciences they were able to piece her back together. Like some god damn miracle.

Well, poor those doctors, she was about to waste their time and miracles the moment she was out.

She clenched her fists, and wanted to cry again.

She didn't _want_ to die, not really. She thought about it in a very flippant way, but everything inside her was hurting, and she just wanted out of that pain. Wanted to be free and nothing at all. The pain and cost of living was too great for someone who had no one and nothing keeping her bound. She was alike a balloon filled with air until someone popped it, or until someone let go of her string. Or maybe she'd just never had one. A string, that is.

God, she was such a selfish brat, only thinking of herself. _He'd_ said so, and he'd been right, just as always. Wasn't that what people said about those who tried to commit suicide? That they were selfish?

Well she was, and she didn't want to subject herself to her shame any longer.

She jumped as the door opened to her hospital room, and in walked a pretty woman with a clipboard and a man behind her. A man that was strangely familiar to her, but not in the way that was obvious or set her off. She'd know if he belonged to Junichi's gang.

"Uchiha-san? Ah, glad to see you're awake," the woman said and she blinked. _Uchiha?_ Her surname was Ueda, and her full name was Ueda Yuriko. She was about to correct the woman, probably having been I.D'd wrong—she wouldn't be surprised if she was just really numb and her face was completely deformed, not that it mattered, she wasn't going to last much longer—when the woman opened her mouth again. "We have a few more things left to do before you're discharged, but our Hokage-sama has come to fill you in on something you should be aware of."

The next couple minutes of her life were one of complete hysterics.

* * *

 **寸善尺魔 -** _sunzenshyakuma_ \- in evil, there is odds; there is more evil than good in this world; one good thing tends to cause many bad things to happen


	2. I stayed

When Yuri was little she liked to wake early for the morning cartoons and wouldn't have felt satisfied going to bed that night if she hadn't stayed up to catch the later shows that aired. She had always been a fussy girl, selfish when she wanted something and having no competition through sibling rivalry, she hadn't felt very sorry for it. Her parents were the type to be comforted just knowing she was out of trouble and not messing with anything she wasn't supposed to.

It had been their response for everything when she was growing up, just sit her in front of the television, go about their day and the world was much more peaceful like that.

Yuri could never tell anyone the truth for why she felt the need to spend her time devouring fictional worlds, or watching the only friends she felt an actual bond through the screen of the television or a book. She'd thought it was normal until she was nearly middle school age where children started to depart from their childishness and started graduating to become more rounded individuals. When childhood interests were expected to change, to evolve. She herself could never do it, and made truer friends with those who felt the same.

She loved fictional worlds _because_ they were fictional. They weren't real, and for her there was a comfort in that. Sometimes she'd stare at the screen and think, _how lucky_. She didn't know who was the lucky one in the equation, herself for having enjoyed a good adventure without having to lift a finger, or the characters for not having to deal with the mediocrity and sometimes stifling realness of the world.

She'd never thought she'd have to be on the other side of that equation.

Or perhaps she was simply crazy.

* * *

 **とどまるより他に仕方なかった**

* * *

She couldn't tell them the truth, could she?

No, no.

No, she couldn't. And she found she didn't want to.

So, instead—as sick and morbid as it was—she took what she knew of the world and her predicament and used it to her advantage. She lied through her stolen teeth, with her stolen voice and played to the best of her abilities at someone who had come from something traumatizing—either way she had, though she wasn't sure if attempted suicide could somehow hold weight to someone being murdered by a relative. She wasn't sure if her face worked the way it should, or if she was believable at all, so she hoped against everything she wouldn't meet anyone who knew her. Not her, but _her_.

Her shape's name was Uchiha Hiyori, and she was deceased but Yuri couldn't find it in her to come to any real terms with that. She was a wolf in a dead sheeps clothing, or maybe she wasn't even that, but either way it felt terrible. And for some reason she found that ironic. The girls name made her think of the word _hiyorimi_ , to sit and see how the wind blows, or something of that nature. It reminded her that she was on a tipping scale and could be knocked over by a breeze at any given moment.

If she thought about it, it was a nice name for an Uchiha, with their crest being a fan. Her parents had likely named her for that, and it reminded Yuri that she didn't have a single clue whose form she'd taken. What had those people been like, now certainly dead with only two sole 'survivor's' to mourn their loss. No, not even two. There lived one soul who would really remember them, and she was loathing the thought of facing him. Well, she supposed there was Itachi, but did he care? She knew he was acting on orders but how far did his love for his actually clan go?

She supposed it hadn't gone very far if his solution to the problem was to kill them all off (she really couldn't say much about that, seeing how her solution had been to kill herself), picking favorites for his little brother. She wondered if she should be feeling angry at that, for the sake of Hiyori—they were on first name basis, at least Yuri liked to think so while she inhabited this body—but it wasn't like she knew the girl. That gave her pause. Was it selfishness if she hadn't asked for it? For this extended existence? This _stolen_ existence?

For all her bravado she felt like ilk as she moved about, healing in a body that wasn't hers—had belonged to someone who most likely _wanted_ to live. Who had probably fought with all her might against Itachi, and even those words didn't feel all that real to her.

 _This world is supposed to be_ fictional.

She looked down at her pale, slim fingers and thought, _maybe it still is._

She wondered if that still meant she had to end it all, but her brain shut down with that thought and she spent a half hour staring into nothing.

Her gaze crossed her hands once more, and she pressed them into the grove of her elbow, running them along the length of her flesh and watched as it raised goosebumps. Tears dripped from her eyes, and she wanted to curse at them. She never use to be a crier, but apparently she was now. A part of her wanted to stifle herself as much as possible, but a new thought rose to her forethought entirely unbidden.

Would it be . . . would it be such a bad thing if she kept living?

* * *

 **とどまるより他に仕方なかった**

* * *

Hiyori had lived a civilians life, which is why so many of the doctor's—medic-nin?—were so perplexed with her. A civilian. Living through Itachi? Unheard of. The majority probably thought he went easy on her, but a few had noted that she absolutely shouldn't have lived through a wound like hers. She'd caught her doctor, Katogaya Aeru, describing in graphic detail the severity of the stab wound and apparently it had punctured her lungs and she had found evidence of it having sliced a bit of her heart. She'd likely was supposed to have died by the flooding of blood into her airways, a manner of choking and drowning to death. A brutal way to go. Yet her heart had been clotted long enough for others to come to the rescue—or well to resuscitate her. She'd already been dead when they found her. (Yuri hadn't been conscious for that so she didn't know how this body lived either.)

She should have died. More aptly, she should have _stayed_ dead. Subsequently, she was a bit of a miracle.

She couldn't exactly tell them that while Hiyori hadn't actually lived, there was some other girl piloting now, so she was very silent while they worked about and gave her check ups and gossiped.

Soon two weeks passed by like they were nothing, but all Yuri could show for her time spent there was that she had a very gruesome scar that ran the length upwards her side and chest. Sometimes it hurt as she moved about, but she'd been assured that was completely normal. It was sealed and almost entirely healed, which had seemed bogus to her at first. It hadn't even been stitched, but that was chakra, she supposed. Literal magic.

Yuri was supposed to be getting out soon, and she didn't know what she'd do with herself. Didn't know what Hiyori did for work, if she even worked at all. If there was some type of school she went to as unlikely as that was in this world. Didn't even know how old her body was. She didn't know if she was younger or older, and had only given her form a sparse look before it became too weird. So strange to see a face not her own, and so unsettling she had done everything she could to avoid mirrors or reflections.

But soon it would be time to face the music, and step into a life she hadn't asked for, wasn't sure she wanted (if she was worthy of it), and do what she could.

* * *

 **とどまるより他に仕方なかった**

* * *

Sasuke felt numb as he was directed to the waiting room to wait for his cousin—someone he didn't particularly know very well, but seeing as she was now all he had left, and vice versa, he'd been encouraged to walk her home upon her release. He didn't know how he felt about that, taking her to a place where they'd lost everything, and she nearly her life. When asked, he'd declared he'd wanted stay near the compound.

He didn't know why he did, save more maybe that he'd wanted to make sure it still existed. That the life before literal hell took over had some way of remaining intact. For him, he had lost everything there. Yet he remained.

He wondered if he should feel a bit grateful for the fact that there was one more to suffer with him, as petty the thought was, but if anything he just felt like . . . well he didn't really feel much of anything. He wondered if he'd always be like that, as cold as ice and if Hiyori was the same. Oddly, he found he didn't want to see her to find out, but he knew he had to.

"Uchiha-kun," the same woman who had directed him in called out and he looked up from the flooring to see her and a short girl that appeared much older than him with features nearly identical to his own standing stoically by the unknown chaperones side. "The paperwork is all settled, if you both need anything, let us know, alright?"

Sasuke felt his jaw tick at that, and noted the way Hiyori stiffened before seeming to melt a bit into a plastic smile. It made her eyes turn hollow and dead. He wondered if he looked like that. If others even noticed.

"Of course," Hiyori said pleasantly, though the grip of her hand belied the inner turmoil that didn't manage to rise to the surface. He was a bit surprised with how controlled she was, if what was going on under her mask was anything at all similar to what hid beneath his. She wasn't a shinobi after all, and from what he remembered of her, she'd always been a bit of a cry baby. He'd heard passing stories of she and their shared cousins growing up and how she'd been picked on by the older boys, and had always been upset about something.

The thought made him want to burst into laughter, the hysterical kind that had no rhyme or reason. His line of thinking was just too mundane for the reality of it. Here he was questioning her when she'd had reason enough to change in some way. Because . . . because . . .

Those cousins were all dead now. Murdered, and he was just standing there looking at the ashes of what was left.

Hiyori looked at him very much the same, and without words the two started for the door.

They didn't say anything to each other as they walked, and he was glad for it. The silence gave him time to think, and it obviously did her some good as she glanced around and watched the world move along as it always had, always would.

* * *

 **とどまるより他に仕方なかった**

* * *

For someone who had shattered before and hadn't been able to pick herself up, she wasn't sure what words she could put to use to help keep a boy who looked to be in a million different pieces from breaking further.

Yuri had never been very good at words. She hadn't been very creative despite having an obsession for stories and art either. She'd never wanted to create, had never wanted to mold something with her hands or form an extended piece of herself so that others could partake. She wasn't a cake to be fed on, so she'd always been terrible with words.

Sasuke looked like a corpse, pale with eyes hollowed and his lips pursed. Sasuke, a boy who wasn't supposed to be real, but was breathing right beside her as they walked along the streets of a place she'd only seen through the lens of a drawn universe. A part of her didn't even want to care, just wanted to give up and wallow as she had always done, and thought she always would. Still, another part that was tired of playing the victim wanted to do something, anything to alleviate the pain.

She wondered if he'd let her hold him. Eyeing his form from the corner of her eye, she thought that the answer wound be a definite no. They didn't have the familiarity, and even though the shape she took was related to him, he didn't seem very interested in receiving comfort from her. She felt like the dirt they walked on for having stolen the body, for masquerading in the face of a dead family member, but that didn't seem to change much.

When they approached an open gate, one that seemed familiar and yet not at all, her heart began to patter and she looked at Sasuke for confirmation—or something, but he was already walking inside. It seemed he didn't care what she did with herself, and as she thought about it that made sense. _He_ was the child after all, all of seven years old and—and he'd been alone for weeks until now. Already acting liking an adult.

And as she watched his receding back, she jerked with a realization that if she were to suddenly disappear he would be like that always until Naruto. No, even after Naruto. He'd be like that forever. Alone.

Yuri swallowed. A new weight pressed against her shoulders, one she wasn't sure if she was prepared to carry. With that sinking feeling she knew she had to be though. Through whatever means had catapulted her here, she had to be prepared for whatever that came her way, and Sasuke was a hurricane she had to find a way to bottle.

* * *

とどまるより他に仕方なかった — todomaru yori hoka ni shika na katta — There was no other option but to stay.

 **A/N:** This wasn't edited, but I felt I should update anyways. Thanks for those who reviews and followed and favorited! It's so appreciated, you don't even know.


	3. Hunger

When her feet started moving she found herself trailing after him and towards where she assumed he'd been staying, perhaps this was his old house? She cursed whoever had wanted a boy who'd just lost his family to live exactly where they all died, because some things just shouldn't be done, and that was one of them.

A seven year old, not even graduated from the Academy, and he was living by himself in this big ass zone. A small, tempered growl left her mouth, and the sound—as any sound that left her new throat did—surprised her. She sounded so sweet now when she talked. Only inside did she hear her true voice, a deep mature contralto she'd been told could pass for a boys, a voice she'd both hated and loved.

Everything was strange and bizarre in this body, colors didn't look the same—which was a given, she'd been color blind in her old body—and she stood shorter than before, and heck, she smelled different—though that could be the hospital, her sweat smelled different, and her skin felt different to the touch. She didn't know how much things changed when one became acquainted with a body that wasn't theirs originally, but the experience wasn't one she'd recommend.

She shook her head of the thoughts and followed Sasuke into his house, which was a large building she assumed meant they had power and prestige within the clan. He paused, looked back with a frown and cocked his head at her. So he'd assumed they'd part ways.

Yuri stopped, bit her lip and thought of what to say. She couldn't very well tell him that she had no clue where Hiyori lived on a logical stand point, and on an emotional one that she didn't want to be alone or for him to feel that way either.

Ice filled her lungs as she opened her lips, "I-I don't think we should be alone right now." Oops, she'd said it anyways. Uh, uh . . .

What did children need more than anything when they were grieving? When it seemed like they were all on their own and had no one but themselves for support? She didn't have to think long, they were things she'd once begged for. Warmth, support, shelter, love, contact. Yuri didn't have much of a choice in staying, but she could do something to make another feel like they had at least some of those things.

(She had been a selfish human, but she had also been one who hadn't ever wanted another to feel like she had, and in this case he would no doubt be worse off than her.)

Yuri pressed her fingers to her stomach when she felt that familiar pinching feeling. She was hungry. Now that was something.

When her grandmother had been alive it had been thoughts of her food that had brought Yuri to calmness; that nice drowsy feeling when all there was was comfort and a pleasant warmth in her stomach and no tears to be spilt. Baba had always known when Yuri needed something more tangible than something nonexistent, but that had ceased when she had grown too old, and then too sick.

"It's lunch time," she told Sasuke, and stepped through his front door without any reservations, not even the kind that made her feel like trash for being a fraud.

A child was so much more than the feelings she felt, his well being and growth special and important. She could do nothing less than see to his health and care, and that's what had her decided.

She could kill herself again and again, and maybe then she'd truly be nothing, unable to feel those scars her current form didn't possess, but there was a child in front of her. A child that had been like her, alone without a soul in the world who cared whether she lived or died. Maybe he wasn't real, and maybe she wasn't either, but it was real enough to her.

Yuri found the kitchen and thought about the sort of dishes she could create.

She'd once wanted to be a chef when she was younger once upon a time before everything became so fucked up. Before she became too perverted by the hands of someone truly worthy of hell. Before she herself became something disgusting, too damaged and unwanted, too much of everything and nothing at all.

Still, she knew lots about cooking, and lots about nutrition. That was something children needed, right? Something she could give in exchange for having taken something that which wasn't hers.

Sasuke loved tomatoes. Onigiri. Simple things and nothing sweet. She knew that not because she'd ever had a love for him as a character, but because she'd been obsessed with Naruto as a series and had read it somewhere. She hoped it was true enough for the one trailing after her.

She found the rice in a bin beside the sink, and set to work on making the both of them a few onigiri. She was grateful that this world still had a rice cooking machine that didn't look too different from the ones she'd used in the past. She did it all silently, and he wordlessly watched.

It was definitely awkward when they sat down to eat, and she had to dab at her eyes a bit with her knuckles. Because this body seemed to enjoy sprinkling water from her eyes for some stupid reason. Sasuke just sat and ate. She wished she understood more about her situation, why she was here in the first place when being reincarnated into a fictional world seemed to only be in anime and books. Except that wasn't in her case.

Could she live like this always?

She supposed she'd have to, she had no assurances she wouldn't end up somewhere worse.

* * *

 **世界 には飢え に苦しむ人々 も居る**

* * *

Uchiha Hiyori had been sixteen when she died, which was the same age Yuriko had been when she committed suicide. They shared the same birthday, oddly enough which meant she would still be seventeen in a few months. That was a strange thing for her to realize. That there would be some sort of continuation, that this . . . that when she'd walked off that platform with the intention of becoming nothing, with the overwhelming hope that in some way she'd be able to free herself from . . .

In some ways she had managed to free herself, hadn't she? Except—except, she remembered what it felt like stepping off that platform, almost carried by the wind with her limbs feeling like noodles papering through the air. There had been no resistance in her body, and her stomach had flipped with so many churning emotions she hadn't been able to pin point exactly the things she felt but inside it was like she was screaming at herself to—to do what?

What were the words that she had been screaming? And why did she feel like she'd failed in some ways? Shamed and degraded herself far more than any other being had. Which was saying something.

She had freed herself.

She had _freed_ herself.

She had.

Hadn't she?

Yuri didn't know what to do with herself now that she wasn't in the hospital but in the compound. Sasuke was starting school again and all she could really do was make him bentos when that time came and send him off with a smile, because that's all she really had.

It wasn't like _her_ family had been snuffed out in one night. (Although it wasn't like she'd ever been able to see hers again either, so maybe they had.) She couldn't come from that point and comfort him as if they were going through the same things. As if that was honest. It wouldn't be, and Yuri didn't have it in her to tell those white lies to him, though she'd told them in the hospital. It was one thing with a stranger, another when it came to Sasuke.

She wondered if he'd need to talk about it. If he did, she wondered what she'd say to him. "Sorry, kiddo, sucks your parents and family are all dead, but you got me, right?" She wasn't sure if a suicidal teen with mental issues and a questionable history would be the right person to give him the things he needed. Would he always have her?

What if she disappeared and all of this was a dream?

The thought made her want to laugh.

Her fingers paged the documents she was currently over looking, the sort that had been in Fugaku's office. Sasuke had been the one to let her in when she'd asked. Really she wanted to get a solid grasp of what sort of things she would need to do in this reality, even if she wasn't sure of it's corporeality.

It sounded like fanfiction, but Yuri was now the eldest Uchiha in the clan through whatever magic had occurred. Older than even Itachi, though not older than Obito. He'd still be around, but she didn't really consider him a member of the clan, neither did she Itachi. A name they may share, but the sense of binding they did not.

Was even _she_ an Uchiha? Her true family name was Ueda.

She looked up at the crimson fan right there on the walls of the office and she cocked her head to get a better look at it. If she had been born in this world originally, she might've felt shackled by the thing. Maybe it was just within her nature to be tied down.

She glanced down at her hands, the one fingering the documents, and sighed. Yuri then stood up and headed towards one of the bathrooms in the large house, the one closest to the office, and pinched her eyes shut as she opened the sliding door. She felt her body cringe as if expecting a hit before she clenched her hands and willed enough of her courage to step towards the direction of the mirror. She'd been in the bathroom before, and she'd always gone in pretty much blind.

Yuri wanted to cry and so Hiyori's body obliged her, but as she opened her eyes to look at the girl before her, she was always shocked by what she saw.

The differences in their appearance cut a hole the depth of an ocean inside of her.

This was Hiyori's face, Hiyori's dark eyes staring back at her filled with Hiyori's tears. They were not Yuri's golden brown eyes, the ones that had captured the prowling of a predator, that met _her_ gaze. They were a stare as black as night, the stars twinkling in the moisture of her emotion. Yuri had cried so little, she had never seen her eyes do that before, and the expression was so alien on the girls face she didn't know what to do—what to think.

Hiyori was a beautiful girl, soft lips and soft cheeks, with black hair that trailed her frame like a river and ended just above her shoulders. She looked like a doll where Yuri had looked like a call girl. She had hit puberty early, grown into a mature body too soon, and she'd suffered for it. She'd been tall for a Japanese girl, about 170 cm (5'7), and had a darker skin tone than Hiyori, not because of the sun but because she'd been mixed in race and had an _exoticism_ to her that . . .

Yuri felt ashamed for a moment for thinking Hiyori's shape to be the answer to every little thing she'd hated about herself for having. For a time she'd thought it was her fault for having caught the eyes of that sick person, but . . .

She rubbed at her eyes.

It hadn't been her fault.

Yuri took a deep breath. A shuddering breath that felt good to release, and shook her head with a quiet laugh.

She should have lived in spite of him, shouldn't she? She should have . . . she shouldn't have . . .

Yuri was not Hiyori.

They were not the same.

Yuri did not see Yuri looking back at her, but Hiyori.

They were not the same.

Was it a sin to wish they were?

Yuri found herself sinking into a new sort of despair, and she struggled to keep herself floating through it, she needed to find a string to buoy her balloon.

She had always been a selfish human being. Perhaps that's why she decided that it wasn't such a bad thing to pretend for a while.

* * *

世界 には飢え に苦しむ人々 も居る — sekai ni wa ue ni kurojimu hitobito mo iru. — Some people in the world suffer from hunger.


	4. A Breathing Body

Sasuke felt like he was dragging himself around, as if there was a weight on his body, but he had a fire beneath his feet that kept him moving.

The morning of his first day back to classes he woke up to the sounds of footsteps that reminded him that there was another being in the house, but that they weren't his parents because he could actually hear her moving around, and he'd never been able to hear them. Still, there was something about simply hearing that another person was awake, still walking and living where others were not, it was a small comfort.

A comfort he didn't want to need.

That was probably when the anger set in.

* * *

 **息に身は死に身**

* * *

Yuri had prepared herself and Sasuke a light morning meal, and was just heading over to his room to wake him up when he came into the dining room all dressed and prepared to leave. She gave him a cursory glance as she set everything down, and before he could make a slip outside, she grabbed hold of his collar and sat him at the table with a pair of chopsticks.

It was a very unconscious patting of his head that met the slapping of his hand, and she jumped a bit in surprise. Yuri looked down at the boy and saw the angles of his eyes meet hers with a glare. She frowned. Moody boy.

She decided not to take it personally, he didn't want her touching him, which was fine, but he still had to eat and she wouldn't let him leave without food.

"Eat," she told him, and sat across from him to have her own share.

Meals with him were always quiet, in fact the house hardly had sound aside from the pattering of her footsteps. She hadn't realized how light a shinobi's footwork was until she'd felt she'd had a heart attack when Sasuke came out of no where. It'd happened several times now, and each time served her the reminder that they were both different creatures.

The silence, she was starting to realize, was probably not a good thing. Children needed enjoyment and sound in their life, not to wallow in their sadness and despair, to become jaded by living so soon. She couldn't help what had happened, that was unchangeable. Still, it was a daunting task to undertake, and she supposed that was the price she paid in taking "the easy way" out.

(It had not been easy.)

It was daunting in that she knew words weren't the sealant, as powerful as they were. It had taken Naruto years to bring her new charge to his knees, and she was just some girl. But with this face she was also family.

And what exactly did that mean? Family?

In the past it would have meant several things. When she was little and Baba was still around, it meant warmth and happiness, safety and love. Then it became cold and chilling. Perhaps that's how it was for Sasuke, she was all he had left, and he didn't even realize that he didn't even really have _her_. Her as in Hiyori.

Still, she was not Hiyori, but now she was. The night she'd finally taken a good look at herself was when she'd realized that. She hadn't asked for it, but now it was unchangeable.

That meant she and Sasuke lived beneath the same crimson banner, and wore the fan crest on their clothing. She herself had found where Hiyori had lived and had taken a few items of the girls wardrobe to Sasuke's house. She slept in the guest bedroom and was settling the families affairs as if she was one of them. She supposed she now was.

She frowned as Sasuke stood up and headed towards the kitchen. She heard the clattering of the dishes in the sink. "Your bento for lunch is right on the corner, make sure to grab it!"

She didn't hear a response, but then again, she didn't expect to.

When Yuri was done with the meal she set about cleaning up and sighed when she crossed into the kitchen to find the bento still there.

She didn't know whether to feel disheartened, upset, or worried.

Was it because it was her?

She sighed. She didn't know where the Academy even was . . .

Would it be strange for someone not to know if she asked someone in the streets? All of her clothes wore the same emblem, so wouldn't it be odd? An Uchiha asking for directions? In a village she should know like the back of her hand?

It didn't matter, she had to ask so she had to ask, because she wasn't about to let her hard work go to the compost or his tummy not to be filled.

After she was done cleaning up she took Sasuke's lunch and, as nervous as she was, stepped outside of the compound and into the streets of Konoha.

She hoped she would remember how to get back . . . Could she blame it on being directionless? Like, "ahah, silly me, I just don't really know my lefts from my rights, y'know? Eheheh~!"

Yuri balked at the idea, and in that moment wanted to slap herself. It didn't matter! She'd just have to do it anyways.

For some reason she felt light as she made her way down the streets in search of another person. She wasn't surprised the area was so dismal. Of course people would be avoiding an area where just recently the streets were painted red. Still, despite that, a part of her felt as free as a leaf. She smiled—actually smiled!—at the thought. A leaf, here in Konoha. It was as if the more she walked, the more she was distancing herself from her past and heading into a different future.

Yuri realized she would have to grow stronger, and to do so she had to no longer live as selfishly as she had before, rather . . . her grip on the bento tightened. Rather, Yuri had to live for someone else. And that someone else looked a lot like the current her.

She found a mother and daughter pair walking the streets, a seeming cloud covering their wake. That wasn't surprising either.

"H-hello!" Yuri called, and the mother looked back at her, a frown dashing across her face. "Do you know where the Academy is?"

"Which one?" the woman responded, and Yuri paused. _There was more than one?_ Of course there more than one!

"S-shinobi!" What else was there to add?

The woman's frown deepened, "It's just down the street."

Oh . . . _oh_. She felt like an idiot, but it couldn't be helped.

 _So not too far from the compound._ Yuri thanked the woman, her face probably a bright red from embarrassment and headed towards the direction of where the school was. She hoped there was only _one_ shinobi academy, and if this wasn't the one Sasuke went to, she'd have to be more . . . eloquent. She simply hoped this was it.

It being quite early, there were still some children walking through the gates, a familiar gate she'd seen before. She felt a sigh leave her body, this was it then.

Now just to find where that brat had gone.

That turned out to be rather easy. It being Sasuke's first day back she just had to follow the sounds of squealing girls. She saw him by himself, completely ignoring the others around him, with a book in his hand. She wondered what it was about, if he enjoyed novels and the like, such as she did. Or maybe it was something for school, she had no idea what the Academy taught and what was required.

Her legs were so damn short now it took a bit of time to get close enough to call his name, "Sasuke-kun!" He looked up, and she could see a touch of irritation in the way he quirked his eyebrow down. He didn't make any efforts to address her, and seemed prepared to ignore her, too.

"You forgot your lunch," she said and was surprised by how pleasant she sounded despite her nervousness.

It wasn't fun being rebuffed by a seven year old, but she could be an understanding person. Sasuke most likely didn't want to be coddled; maybe in the weeks she'd been in the hospital and he'd been on his own, he'd grown attached to something comfortable in having no one. She wasn't sure but she'd been much the same, feeling safe unattached to anyone and yet yearning for it all the same. Did Sasuke yearn, too?

"Is that his cousin? I thought they all died."

"What? What happened? I just thought he'd been sick."

"He wasn't sick, you dummy."

Sasuke's jaw ticked, and her fists clenched.

"Please eat," Yuri said and drew closer to the boy. She sat the bento beside him, and wished she could do something to ease the heartache and misery reflected in his coal eyes. Hated how they didn't shine the way they were meant to. "What time do your classes end?"

"Tch," his eyes glared daggers at her, but that was okay because she'd just ask one of his classmates or teacher. Feeling brave, she patted him on the shoulder, and started formulating plans in her head.

Like she'd expected, he swatted her fingers away before grabbing the box and stalking away. She sighed. What to do.

* * *

 ** **息に身は死に身****

* * *

Yuri found a map. A map that was pretty much her godsend, and helped her in every facet of her day when she'd asked the Academy attendant for a copy while she'd been there. They'd of course thought it weird, but hey, they knew she was an Uchiha, and knew it could be something medical for her lapse in memory. Right?

When she'd gotten back to the compound she'd decided to go shopping for much needed necessities before heading out into the city. She was considering looking for smaller apartments near or around the Compound's area, mostly because she really didn't think it was healthy for herself or for her little charge to be in that tomb. She didn't know where they'd go, but she did know they did need to stay together.

It was strange because he was technically by (an idiotic) law allowed to live on his own? And she didn't have custody in any sort of way, so she was looking to fix that as well. That reminded her, she needed to find books on their laws, because this place was backwards and just odd most times and she didn't know what was illegal and what wasn't. She only knew about Sasuke's status because of her involvements in the Uchiha's affairs. That had been a real kicker.

Because while Yuri was not Hiyori, she was now, and she had to be the best Hiyori she could be. It helped that their names didn't sound too different.

Her first stop was to a book store. While there she found several books on parenting, some philosophy books the clerk recommended, and the much needed book of shinobi guidelines and laws. She'd also gotten a few recreational books she'd been curious about, Jiraiya's Gutsy Ninja and a few of his romances. (She wondered if the latter would ruin his character for her, but hey, while in Konoha, right?)

Her next stop would have been grocery shopping, but seeing as she was one person with no muscles to speak of, she'd have to go when Sasuke and her were both free. Or maybe she'd hire genin.

Speaking of genin, she'd seen a few of them dashing across the rooftops and it was every bit as funny to watch as it'd been in the show, or more when people who looked real did it. Her mind had short circuited seeing it though, her thoughts paralleling, _that's some great cosplay, they're very athletic_ , before remembering herself. Oh, yeah.

She tapped her chin, ignoring the flipflopping of her stomach. She wanted to find a way to liven the place they were staying at while she was looking for different housing. Perhaps there was music players and she could find some nice tracks. She wondered on the technology of the world, but then remembered she'd definitely seen a T.V. being sold in one of the windows she'd passed.

She hadn't seen one in the house, but maybe Mikoto and Fugaku had been very old fashioned, and not really with the times.

Yuri circled back and found the electronics shop she'd seen the T.V. in and while there purchased a CD player she'd found, a decent sized television set with something similar to a DVD player and placed it as an order to be delivered to the compound in the coming days.

Her hands were already full of her books, so while she'd wanted to search for movies she and Sasuke could watch together, things for kids and the like, she knew she'd grow too tired. She should have brought some type of bag with her.

She'd have to look for one at the house, uncomfortable with spending frivolous money on herself when she'd already bought a few unnecessary books. The money she was using belonged to the Uchiha after all, and she'd been paid a sizeable amount for . . . she supposed the village not having protected them sufficiently. She should find a way to sue them really, but she wasn't greedy. She just wanted reparations for Sasuke.

With the amount of money she now possessed from the wills of others, the village itself, and the pool that had already been the clans before, she couldn't see herself or Sasuke ever needing to work a day in their lives, but there was something . . . sickening about that.

As if feeding on the dead. She didn't like having gained from others ceasing to exist.

Yuri would have to find a job, if only to save her conscious and put the money back into things more positive for Sasuke. The hours would have to be the same as the Academy's because she wanted to be available for him always, but she'd have to look around, see what was available.

She went home instead of shopping for more things, and got started on preparing an after school snack for her ward, just in case he didn't eat his lunch like she'd told him. She knew he didn't like sweets, but Yuri always had so she'd baked herself some matcha tea cakes just to take her mind off of things after she was done making him a few sandwiches which she placed in the cooler to keep fresh.

Afterwards she'd gotten to reading, setting a timer to alert her when the Academy would release.

It was an hour into her reading a parenting book on a section for grieving that she realized she should be providing Sasuke with outside play, but not training. He'd been doing a lot of that while she'd been learning more about the Uchiha's affairs, but she supposed she'd have to find something for them to do together.

She knew he wouldn't appreciate walks, but, hm. Her first thought was gardening—it's something she and her grandmother had done a lot before she passed.

They could plant tomatoes. Sasuke liked tomatoes.

When the buzzer rang she silenced it, set her book down and made her way out of the compound and to the Academy.

Yuri was getting a bit more comfortable coming and going, but still she had that tremor in her chest.

Some kids were already leaving by the time she arrived, and she caught her ward just as he was slipping past the gates. Some of the kids parted for him as he moved, unsure of where they stood. It was obvious none of them really understood or knew how to come to terms with what happened, which was understandable. They may be training to be child soldiers, but they were still children.

She caught him by the scruff of his neck, and pulled him to a stop. He had probably sensed her somehow before because he didn't react in surprise or shock. He simply drew his face upwards at her and gave her a look that said, " _the hell do_ you _want?_ "

Instead of saying anything, she pulled at the sleeve of his arm and grasped for his hand. He tried to pull away, but she held fast. She knew he didn't really hate it when he didn't use the brunt of his strength to push her away, the way she knew he could. Yuri wasn't that strong of a girl in Hiyori's body.

She noted the box in his hand and wondered if she'd have food to throw out or dishes to clean.

It didn't matter though, she was holding hands with her ward while they walked home, and to her that was some sort of progress.

* * *

 ** **息に身は死に身****

* * *

Later, the dishes of his lunchbox were wiped down and set aside for tomorrow for another use.

* * *

 **A/N:** I drew a cover for this :D so yah and yah. Hope you like it, also hope you're enjoying this story! c:

息に身は死に身 — iki ni mi wa shi ni mi — lit. a breathing body is a dead body. It's a proverb which means, 'to live is to die".


	5. If It Happens Twice

If it was morbid curiosity or just the desire to find something to mourn in those Sasuke had lost, she didn't know. She wasn't even sure if it was morally sound, but Yuri had started to visit the homes of those deceased. Things were as they had been left, and while Sasuke was in school or training, she would head into the houses and start to clean.

Most of the blood had been washed out with a stinky smelling peroxide of some sort, but she could still see some of the floors and the residue it had left. The bodies also had all been cleaned out, and someone had done the kindness of cleaning the dishes that had been left out.

It made her realize that there was so much for her to do. So much for her to learn.

She wondered how canon Sasuke had dealt with all of things left by his relatives, because so far it had been designated as up to her. Perhaps though, he'd hired shinobi to assist or something, and maybe she should but she didn't feel secure in allowing others to see how they lived. Was that her selfish streak? Wanting to be the only one who saw everything?

It was a lot of work, and it was work that made her weepy and teary eyed, thinking about those poor people. Still, she tried to keep a positive mindset. After she'd died she'd ended up here, if one were to take things at face value, so maybe for them, they too continued on.

She wondered where Hiyori was. Hoped she wasn't left to Yuri's mangled body like she'd been left to hers.

She shook her head of the thought.

Yuri learned lots about the people. Learned about a woman named Akane who'd been an artist and had some of her wood floors stained in all sorts of colors because of it. She had all sorts of family antiques in her house that were grand and fragile as they stood as trophies in a separate portion of the house. And her paintings, master pieces that hung on her walls, clearly the work of someone meticulously gifted.

Akane had been an old woman as well, and Yuri had found the portraits of nearly every relative of the Uchiha from sometime after Madara. It went on for generations, and she noted each and every one of those dead faces. Noted Obito and Itachi as well. She even saw herself. Or well, Hiyori. There'd actually been several of the girl before she realized Akane had been her grandmother when she'd read a caption on a portrait Akane had been working on. That had been a strange feeling. This body was related to this woman. More than that, she was related to all of them.

"For the beautiful bride, my granddaughter," Yuri read aloud from the unfinished painting, and then she'd frowned.

Bride?

Had Hiyori been engaged?

She had to look further before she saw the grooms face, just barely sketched in while Hiyori's form was more solid and recognizable. He'd also been an Uchiha, and underneath his sketched image had been his name.

"Tomoharu," she breathed out and had to press her hand against her chest to at least try to ease the new ache there. She searched for a more complete rendering and found it close by along with an actual photograph, most likely used as a reference.

He'd been handsome, and while most of the portraits people didn't show their smiles, he did and it was vibrant. She could see that bubbly personality of his and as if she could remember it, felt the ghost of what his hair must have felt like in her fingers. So soft, it'd always made Hiyori jealous.

She felt wistful.

Maybe it was because she was in Hiyori's body, using her brain, but thoughts and emotions started smothering her the longer she sat in that house looking at dead people.

When the well of grief threatened to consume her, Yuri left quickly as she reminded herself over and over again of her own name, and tried to bat away the . . . memories? Could she call them that if they had never been hers to begin with? Things she herself hadn't lived through?

Yet she was now recalling what Tomoharu had looked like with the sun in his eyes and how he'd sputter at her when she'd kick him in the shins as they play fought. He was a shinobi, a jounin that had likened her to a puppy whose eyes would sparkle when she wanted something. But really, he was the dog and she the cat that batted him away. He used to pat her head and bark at her, he was so annoying. It's what he'd done at first to make fun of her, and then it had been done adoringly.

"Inuyori," he'd called her. She could recall the baritone of his voice. It had been a deep sound that she could fall asleep to. They'd been from entirely different sides to the clan yet he'd loved her, and she'd loved him. They'd planned to marry on her seventeenth birthday in May.

Yuri pressed her fingers to the tops of her temples, and felt her body crumble, her knees scraping against the earth of the outside. Then she palmed her face, loud sobs wracking her, making it hard to breath.

She likened it to a dam breaking, but it was like trying to palm water through a net to keep things she'd unknowingly held back from herself, everything that had belonged to that girl. Uchiha Hiyori.

 _Yuriko, Ueda Yuriko! My name is Ueda Yuriko, and those who were close to me called me Yuri! T_ _hat's who I am, that's who I am!_

Perhaps it was the stress of it all, or general sickness, but she vomited.

* * *

 **二度あることは三度ある**

* * *

Yuri continued to feel sick days after, but she hadn't been worried about it. Since she'd been recovering she'd had feelings of nausea and aches all over, but she thought those natural considering the amount of healing she'd had to do. Those kinds of things passed, and she really had been struggling with a lot of things. Despite this, Yuri couldn't remember a time she'd been happier.

It had been slow going, but she'd gotten Sasuke and her to have a few decent conversations, and sometimes he'd tell her about school while they planted things in the garden she'd set up beside the house. She wasn't sure what she was going to do about the food they were growing if she finalized her decision on the apartment. Sasuke wasn't much of a fan for the idea, and she'd started suspecting that he may have insisted on staying there in the first place.

"We can always come back here," she'd told him, and he'd given her this sullen look that made her want to flick him in the forehead. She couldn't see how that wouldn't be triggering to the kid, so she'd subsided, but the instinct had still been there. "We need to start over some time, it's not healthy for us to stay with them."

When she'd said that, he'd gotten this deer in the headlights look and it somehow hurt her to see it.

It sort of made her want to stay despite the ghosts haunting them, or perhaps she wanted to stay _for_ them. So she could feel a bit closer to Tomoharu and Akane, to Roshi and Emi, Ryohei and Taka. There were too many of them in her heart now, having peeked into their lives and now they refused to leave her. Sometimes, but not always, their names would accompany a bit of Hiyori's past memories.

She still wasn't sure what to feel about that, but there it was.

The girl whose body she possessed was starting to come to life behind her eyelids, and it wasn't a gentle take over. Sometimes she wondered if it was Yuri who wasn't real but Hiyori who was. With how vibrant the life before her had been, there was no way it hadn't happened.

Those things between Tomoharu and Hiyori . . . when she thought of those moments between them, the good and the bad, she'd realized she herself had never felt so warm. It was comparable to the moment leading up to her death—not that it was at all warm, but she had never felt so alive aside from the split second before she saw the lights of the train directly in front of her before impact. The moment she'd realized something crucial.

In that moment, she had one thought, _Ah, so I_ have _been alive._

As if life before had simply been a movie and she was just then realizing just how tangible her existence was.

That thought had resounded inside her like a bell, but it hadn't been fast enough to save her, instead she'd forgotten it until now as she recalled the scene over and over again. She found it ironic that it had been the exact moment before she lost everything that it'd hit her, almost at the same time the train did. That she was about to lose _everything;_ the good, the horrific bad, _everything._

 _. . ._

Hiyori though, if _she_ had imagined Ueda Yuriko, she didn't know how.

The girl had pretty much the perfect life. Well, before.

She had never felt the ounce of sadness or the amount of agony Yuri had just by breathing, so how could such a light filled girl dream of something so dark? It really was like weighing a feather against a stone. She didn't want to think of it as if she was belittling Hiyori's life in any way, for not having experienced the callousness of any world, but rather than feel jealousy over Hiyori's happiness, Yuri simply felt happiness that perhaps someone had lived a good life after all.

Maybe it was ignorance or arrogance, but Hiyori didn't feel so dead any more. She was living with Yuri in their shared body, practically sharing in an existence and perhaps they'd always been connected. If this was a world with a veil into Yuri's old one, perhaps they'd always just been the same. Maybe Hiyori was a version of Yuri where life had been good in a very chaotic plane. Perhaps everyone from her corner of the universe had a connection to someone in this one. Yuri didn't like to think that though, because it meant that those who'd ruined her were here as well. In a way.

And maybe she was just trying to justify existing in this body anyways, and her thoughts were simply turning towards impossibilities.

But if Hiyori had imagined this all? Was this Hiyori's way of coping? Creating a different identity to deal with the death of everyone, to distance herself from the massacre of her family? But then why would she make her into someone like _her_. A beaten girl, someone who hadn't felt loving hands in ten years, who didn't think she was now worthy of it. Someone who had wanted to die so fervently that she'd succeeded but was swept into a new life like some _god damn miracle_?

Well it wasn't a miracle! This new life, real or imagined wasn't a miracle! It felt like she was being shown the things she could have had, shoved into a situation she should be feeling grateful towards, but instead was starting to resent. It was like this world was mirroring the things she'd wanted for herself, and taking it away all in the same moment.

Like she'd done to herself.

. . .

Yuri's greatest wish had been wanting love, _true, pure, and unadulterated love_. Had wanted a happy family with only care in their eyes for her . . . she'd wanted to feel warm after everything had iced her. She had wished fervently to melt into spring, but it was winter where her heart was.

That's where her selfishness came in. Wanting love so much, but never giving anything in exchange for it. _How could someone be loved if she hadn't been willing to love herself?_ She'd felt defiled and ultimately unworthy of kindness so when she learned of it . . . it being _someone_ —

And she wanted to take it back, all of it back, wanted to fight her way to her old self and find a way to deal with the things that had haunted her with her own hands. Wanted to make her voice heard, wanted to persecute those men for what they did to her, wanted to show them all that she was strong! That she _was_ worthy! That she _could_ be a good mother after all! That it wouldn't matter who the father was! She'd do it!

But in the end—

In the end . . . the fact was, she couldn't anymore.

She couldn't and . . . she couldn't because she'd done the most degrading thing to herself, and not just her, but to someone she was supposed to have loved the moment she'd learned of their existence. And as a consequence the only option left to her was to feel guilt, and truly she was so _ashamed._

A well of grief hit her in the chest while she swept the floors of Sasuke's and her shared house.

It really was too big for the both of them. She should get a apartment after all.

 _That's right, think of something else before you pass out!_ _Happy thoughts, happy thoughts._

But they always turned so melancholic.

* * *

 **二度あることは三度ある**

* * *

Hiyori's parents, the ones she thought were so perfect when compared to her own were named Chie and Yuuto. It was her father who'd been the shinobi, which begged the question why Hiyori hadn't been adopted into the whole shinobi business, but it was Yuri's luck. She wouldn't have known what to do if she'd had to have dealt with things like that, didn't have any combat training for _anything_.

Yuri had been a bit surprised way back when she discovered how decent and happy these people had been, how decent the Uchiha was in general. Fiction and people in her world had really perverted them into this group of mute isolationists who only cared for one another behind closed doors, but Yuri had evidence to the contrary.

There'd been all sorts of people in the clan, and the family had really been big enough for a small village of their own. There were people from all walks of life. They'd had civilians working normal farming among other assorted jobs, and a great amount of shinobi and police officers that helped protect people. She hadn't found much on the Uchiha's plan for a coup d'etat, but then she hadn't really been looking for it.

Really, everything she'd found had pointed to the general humanity of their lives. The mundane.

As it was, it'd appeared Hiyori's whole aspiration in life was to marry her dear Haru-kun and have his children as quickly as she could. At least that's what Yuri had gathered from the notes Chie had wrote about in a journal after receiving the news of her daughter's betrothal. She'd found it in a dresser beside her parents bed.

 _Hiyori has always loved the easy things in life, and she loves the idea of taking care of others so I'm not surprised by the news,_ and _her desire to be a housewife although apparently everyone else is. The two have always been the closest friends, even as children. I guess I'm just feeling nostalgic over my own Yuuto and that's why I'm writing this. Me being an outsider, I'd worried about Hiyori being marriageable within the clan, but that Tomoharu-kun really was meant for my girl._

Yuri had spent a long while reading that journal, piecing together this cookie cutter romance of two kids falling in love from the perspective of a loving mother, of what their family had. She knew how real it had felt to Hiyori, and though Yuri was jaded when it came to love and intimacy, she wanted to hold onto the optimism of thinking it was all pure.

It broke her heart the more she learned about them when she knew how it had all ended. She wondered if what she was doing could be considered bashing her head into a wall. Beating a dead horse.

Just as she thought that, her stomach turned sour and she had to rush to the kitchen sink to vomit. Once that was done and over with, she felt too weird to continue with the chores inside Hiyori's parents home and decided to go back to Sasuke's house to read. She'd learned a lot recently about all sorts of things when it came to parenting, because that was sort of the role she'd been taking for her ward.

She knew she couldn't replace his parents, but they were cousins, and cousins should take care of each other, no matter how distant.

Yuri didn't like thinking about parenting if she were honest. Didn't like what she could remember of her own parents, and didn't like what she could remember of herself after almost becoming one, though she was in this new predicament. This new life really had wanted to shove everything she could have had into her face.

So here she was, reading parenting books and taking care of a child that wasn't hers.

Her head being clearer than it had been in a while, she could look back on her life from before and could note the second it had gone wrong.

She'd been unable to stop it all, an unwilling—Yuri refused to think the rest, but in the end she'd discovered her pregnancy at the most inopportune moments. She still couldn't help the guilt, that boiling painful feeling that welled inside her now that she thought about it without those manic feelings in the way.

Perhaps it was the head she was using, but she hadn't felt one moment of that out of body wrongness that she would feel from time to time in her old one. Past Yuri would shut down if she thought of the way she was abused, would go on auto pilot and watch from a safe distance as her body took in stimuli like it was nothing. She still shut down, but now she didn't do it in a way that made it impossible to control herself. She didn't become something like a hovering spirit as bad things happened to her or she remembered what it'd been like when something directly or inadvertently reminded her of hell.

Before she'd died, it had been during one of those episodes, and she'd had the pregnancy tests, three because she'd wanted to be sure, all in her school bag. She'd been clutching it for dear life, white knuckling it while she headed towards the train station.

When she'd learned of it, her first instinct hadn't been to love the being in her, growing inside her like what she assumed normal people did. Yuri felt shame because the first thought she'd had was, "It's like a leech." If she had given birth to the child with the thoughts swimming in her head, it's name would have certainly have been Hiru. But the life there had been inconsequential to her, it hadn't mattered in that moment because the being hadn't been real. Not then. It was a thought on the cusp of fictional. Wishfully impossible, yet glaringly probable.

 _She_ hadn't even been real in that moment. Not to herself.

Yuri had been a balloon, floating, and not in the happy way.

She'd taken the back seat and watched everything happen with open and shut eyes. In that moment before all was lost, she had one moment to try to stop herself, that rational part had been screaming there, but everything else had been like a hazy white cloud.

When those first thoughts had dispersed then came the self-deprecation, and the near absolute apathy of what it even meant. She'd been thinking about how disgusting she was, how she'd never be fit for motherhood after everything she'd done, and how she was too selfish to be able to love another human because she'd never done it before. Not once had Yuri loved another that hadn't been drawn and fictional, at least not since Baba, but as a child she'd been simple minded and took everything at face value until the darkness of reality had hit her too hard for her to shy away from the truth.

Love, that true and pure thing she had always wanted had been a lie. Something like the fairy tales adults told children to make them feel better. and perhaps that is why she adored fictional worlds, the only places such a thing could possibly exist. Like magic.

She didn't think she'd had it in her to tell such lies to that thing inside her, planted by evil and hatred. Because what sort of good would of come from something like that? A child born in a moment of agony. She didn't want to know when it might have been conceived, didn't want to think of what she was going to do.

The world was not a good place, and she . . . she hadn't wanted to bring another fucked up being into it.

For some reason, that had meant she had to get rid of herself, too.

Her jaw clenched at the thought and her hands went directly to her stomach.

As if on cue, she ran to the sink to expel whatever sickness was there.

* * *

二度あることは三度ある — nido aru koto wa sando aru — lit. what happens two times happens three. It's like our "history repeats itself" proverb.

 **A/N:** So I hope you guys are in for a ride, but I think the sad chapters are gonna thin themselves out soon, just hold on!

I am doing something with this story I haven't done before, but I hope you guys will like this. Some probably won't, but ehh, my story and all that, but it's something I'd like to dive into because I think there's a lot to learn from situations like this. Just as a side note, this story isn't very centered on the Naruto plot to begin with, it's more about the Uchiha clan than anything, I mean just look at the title.

I'll never actually spell it out within the story, but I'm sure most of you can infer what happened to Yuri was sincerely fucked up, and those moments where she's experiencing that out of body-ness? It's a sort of PTSD coping mechanism those who deal with trauma sometimes experience, it's like floating and watching something bad happen to someone _else_ , like watching TV a bit. It's used to distance yourself from whats going on, and Yuri really hadn't been in the right mind, she'd been very manic and depressed when she'd found out the news of her pregnancy and it had spiraled her.

On that note, I should have prefaced this story with these words, but I'll put these here now that I'm more serious about this fic: I don't know the stories or the lives of those reading, but if you're experiencing any suicidal thoughts or feelings, please know it is not the answer! People can feel sad and lonely and depressed for any reason, and those feelings are valid and should be given care towards and not forgotten, but suicide is never the answer!

Call 1-800-273-8255 please! Or even come talk to me, just pm me and I'll be there with an open heart ready to shoulder the bad with you, know you are not alone, and that this world is filled with those that need to be cherished and be taken care of with only kindness.

Love one another and yourself.


	6. A Demon Laughs

Yuri had started walking Sasuke to school and home, and it was the best part of her days besides when they'd share meals and worked in the garden. It was still the "chill" months, but being in the Land of Fire, that didn't seem to matter much when really it was a hotter spring than she was used to. She wasn't excited for the summer.

It was the beginning of March, and she was feeling light and springy. Maybe because they were holding hands.

Whether he admitted or not, he needed the hand holding they did when coming from school and back, though he seemed a bit embarrassed when his classmates saw. Still, it was the only time he really let her touch him, and whether _she_ admitted it or not, she had needed it too.

"I really liked the nikujaga you made yesterday," Sasuke told her and she blinked in surprise before she gave him the biggest smile she could muster. His words surprised her for a few reasons. One, he'd never complemented her before, two he had never started talking to her before she talked to him, and three he'd said he'd liked something.

Two months could do a lot for their relationship, and they'd somehow grown close in some ways, yet distant in others. She was waiting for the day she could hug him without him pushing her away, but she herself was a bit nervous with the idea. Yuri didn't have much experience with positive skinship, but she was so willing to learn. For his sake.

"Well thank you, Sasuke. Do you have any requests? I can learn some new dishes if you want?" A small laugh took her breath, "We can't eat rice and beef all day, or we'll get fat." She looked at Sasuke, and considered him. At least she would. As it was, she could see her stomach protruding a bit, though it hadn't felt like fat. It wasn't muscle though, that was for sure.

He shrugged and though she expected a non answer, he gave her this, "When the tomatoes come in, do you think we can make meals out of those?"

Her smile broadened, "Of course!" Yuri was so happy in that moment she could skip. "Let's get creative, maybe we can come up with cool new interesting things to do with it."

His lips tugged a bit at the ends, and he mumbled, "Don't go overboard, Hiyo-nee, simple things are good because they're simple."

Yuri had the sudden desire to give him a kiss on the cheek, and to nuzzle into him. She didn't do it, mainly because they were so close to the school and Sasuke was weird about others seeing her. Instead she tightened her grip on him and sort of bumped her hip into his shoulder. They weren't the same height, although she had no doubts he'd get there. Hiyori was a very short girl after all, but she knew he'd get there soon. In a matter of years. The thought was a strange one.

He made the cutest uncomfortable face she'd ever seen, and was about to pinch his cheeks when he pulled her out further into the street. For a moment she was confused until she saw a blonde haired boy racing past where she'd just been.

The boy was whooping and making a racket while a few shinobi ran after him, harried expressions on their faces.

"Naruto! You can't do that!"

"Shows what you know! I did and I still can!" Naruto shouted back, and she caught the sight of his flashing eyes. She gasped.

 _Ah!_

 _Ah!_

What did she do? What _should_ she do?

Yuri blinked, and looked down at Sasuke who glared in the direction of the rambunctious kid.

"Who was that?" she asked as inconspicuously as possible, mustering a calm she didn't feel. "Your classmate?"

Sasuke shook his head in disgust, "Just some dumb kid."

"Dumb? How do you mean?"

"Exactly what I just said. He's annoying, and really not worth the effort to put even that into words."

If Yuri was anyone else she'd have believed the amount of disinterest he'd swamped his voice with, but she knew better and had seen it all written and drawn before.

Sasuke, in some ways, had always been watching that dumb kid Naruto.

She didn't know if he truly just thought he was an annoying kid or not, but she did know Naruto would be someone he'd receive the Mangekyo from believing him dead after he'd beat him up. That meant a lot, whether canon Sasuke chose to accept that.

That time, she couldn't help lifting her open hand to pinch his soft cheeks.

"You're so cute," she said and he batted the hand pinching him away, but still kept his grip in her other hand firm. She laughed at his response and was still smiling after they departed.

Her ward really was the cutest. She sighed. Now it was for the worrying part of her day.

* * *

 **来年の事を言うと鬼が笑う**

* * *

She didn't know what to do if it was the thing she was thinking it to be, but she was still at the doctors waiting for the results. It wasn't just a checkup for her wounds to see how she was doing. It was that too, but it had more to do with the other symptoms she'd been having, that she'd dismissed as her recovering or something in her head. She'd figured it could be all delusional, a phantom pregnancy because maybe she secretly _wanted_ to be pregnant.

But she was sixteen, wouldn't be seventeen 'til May, and she didn't think she was at all prepared. But no matter what, this world and the other sure wanted her to be a mom. She was already taking care of a kid, but the kid she was taking care of wasn't a baby, wasn't hers, and was already pretty self-reliant. Then again she had the added stress of taking care of a child grieving for his whole family. _That_ certainly wasn't easy.

What was she going to do if it was true? She pressed her hand to her belly self-consciously and gnawed at her lip. It certainly was a possibility. Not when she could see those moments between Hiyori and Tomoharu.

They'd been so young by her societies standards, but they weren't by theirs. Really Sasuke's world reminded her a lot of Edo Japan, and those times had only just begun to accept western ideals. From what she could infer of Hiyori's memories though, it wasn't at all weird for her to be a young wife, especially since it'd been planned since the two were in their early teens.

And like teens with hormones, they couldn't keep their hands off of each other. It made her want to puke.

Shaking her head, she had to admit that she didn't know what she was going to do if her suspicions turned out to be true. Still, she would just have to deal with it wouldn't she? If this world really was going to spit in her face, she was going to take it and roll with the punches like she'd never had before, because she was tired of putting herself down and putting herself through such misery. She had to be strong for Sasuke, so why couldn't she also be strong for herself?

Well she certainly could try.

If it was true, she would just have to live on. In a way, it would be atoning for her sins against herself and her own child, even if she didn't believe atoning could ever be enough.

Katogaya Aeru, her doctor, came back with the results in her hand and the woman's face said it all.

She knew before the words left her mouth, "You're pregnant."

Yuri wrung her hands and her heart thundered in her ears and in her chest. "W-what?"

Katogaya-sensei continued on with a frown on her face, "Uchiha-san you're already twelve weeks along."

"T-twelve weeks?" She did the math, because understanding things in weeks just wasn't what Yuri did. And—three months!? Three months and Yuri had only been living in Hiyori for two! She was going to have a panic attack, she was going to have a panic attack! Her breath came heavy and she couldn't seem to get her lungs to listen to her. Because what!?

She had had suspicions before but none of that had seemed real! It'd been more a courtesy thing just to check! But Hiyori had been pregnant when she'd died and somehow this—gah! It really was like fate wanted to give her no choice!

But Yuri couldn't think like that, she'd promised herself _not_ to think like that, just moments ago, in fact. So when her doctor offered her hand she took it and forced herself to breath through the shock.

"I know you're dealing with a lot of feelings right now, but you really hadn't known?"

"I—" No _she_ hadn't, but Hiyori had. She and Tomoharu had been ecstatic, uncertain but so happy. It had been everything a girl like Hiyori had wanted. It's why they'd wanted to do the wedding as quickly as possible, and had decided on her birthday so they'd have time to plan everything, so she wouldn't be so big in her kimono and still look slim enough. "No, I hadn't, I really hadn't."

Yuri bit her lip to stop whatever tears threatened to spill, and for the first time she was able to abate it.

It appeared it was just going to be like this, she supposed. Yuri was already raising a child she had no true relation towards, why not another one?

As soon as that thought filtered through though, she wanted to hit herself for it. It'd sounded bratty even to herself.

"I'm afraid," she told Katogaya-sensei, and the woman nodded in understanding. When hysterics left her she eyed the good doctor. "When I was here before, did you guys know?"

"No, we didn't know to test, and at the time it would have been about three to four weeks along, so we wouldn't have picked up anything if we hadn't known to test for pregnancy in the first place. Chakra coils don't start building util around week twenty, so it's not a perfect science anyways."

C-chakra? Of fucking course. She'd nearly forgotten where the fuck she was.

"Oh," was all she said and then they went into a series of check ups that made everything feel more real that it had before. Mostly it was surreal. That's what it was.

By the end of it the doctor had a happy smile on her face, "He or she is doing great, considering how much stress you must have been in. Make sure not to strain yourself. I'll prescribe you some vitamins you can take and other things that might help."

"Right, thank you, Katogaya-sensei."

Yuri was floating, but Katogaya-sensei's parting words brought her back. "Take care of yourself, you have someone fighting for the right to live in there."

And it was because of those words she realized how true that was.

* * *

 ** **来年の事を言うと鬼が笑う****

* * *

Later when they sat down for dinner, the first words out of her mouth was not to ask after his day like it usually was, instead it was this, "I'm pregnant."

Sasuke had barely bit into the bit of meat she'd served before he promptly dropped his chopsticks and he swallowed by reflex. For a moment he was sputtering and coughing, and his eyes were wide as he looked her over, up and down though the table hid her stomach. She probably should have told him at a different time, but it really was amusing to see him act like that.

"I—I w-what?"

"That's what I said!" She couldn't help the flighty laugh that left her. But this time while she laughed, an unnameable feeling was pooling inside of her, and tears pooled in her eyes. She finally knew why this body cried so often, why she was so moody all the time and not just for the obvious reasons. Hormones were a real bitch.

"When did you find out?" As if he'd never been surprised in the first place, he picked up his chopsticks and continued to eat his meal. He didn't show any obvious signs of concern, but his eyebrows were pinched.

"Today. I went in for a check-up, and apparently I'm already three months along." Her laughter continued, and she pressed her fingers to the bump of her stomach. She wasn't getting fat, she was just pregnant. Someone was growing inside of her!

"A-are you," Sasuke swallowed and his eyes belied his worry for her when he looked up. "Is everything okay?"

She didn't have to think as she said it, "Yes, yes I—no, _we_ are okay." And somehow it was only a half lie. She was _going_ to be okay. Yuri had to be.

"So a baby?" His shoulder's looked heavier, which made her concerned. In the books she'd been reading when dealing with a grieving child, she always had to be receptive, open to when he needed to talk. Perhaps it really hadn't been a good time to tell him something so shocking, but if not when she knew for certain, then when she _had_ the kid?

Oh she was going to throw up, she was going to throw up.

Yuri had to shake herself from the thought. She was _not_ going to throw up.

"Y-yeah," she murmured, and then had to admit she needed contact, needed someone warm to hold. She set her chopsticks down and slid over to his side of the table, and ignoring his resisting hands, she hugged Sasuke's shoulders and breathed in their shared scent of spice and oyakodon.

"Hey, I'm eating, Hiyo-nee." he said and she nodded.

"You can eat, but I need this." She nuzzled her face into his neck and realized then she wasn't alone. Not entirely. There was still Sasuke, breathing and eating her cooking, allowing her to hold him because he could have shook her off if he'd wanted. He was so much stronger than her, probably in all ways.

When she finally felt her body melt and go soft, she let him go and went back to her own meal. A family, a true family. Those were the feelings she was encapsulating.

* * *

 ** **来年の事を言うと鬼が笑う****

* * *

Yuri had started thinking more seriously about the apartment, and had even gone to visit a few close enough to the compound for Sasuke and her to visit when they missed home. She'd visited buildings still close enough to the Academy and other places of business so she wouldn't have to walk far. _Yuri_ wasn't the ninja in the family, so she wasn't in the best shape, in fact Yuri's old body had more muscle mass than Hiyori's thin, delicate frame.

Made sense though, it wasn't like Hiyori had ever wanted to be physically strong, her goals had lied within creating a happy family, and Yuri supposed she was adopting it a bit. Or more, it's something both of them had shared. Yuri's constant wish had also always been for a happy family, and she was going to start working towards that with more fervor using all the motivations allotted to her. She just had to try!

She was surprised by how much motivation a little one in her stomach and the hot-and-cold Sasuke was giving her, but she considered herself a bit like a surrogate rather than a true mother for now and that helped her cope with it a bit. She still had lots of doubts when considering being an _actual_ mother, but wasn't she already taking care of Sasuke? Were those things enough to justify herself in thinking that maybe she wouldn't do such a bad job? Probably not, it wasn't like she was giving the kid everything he should have had without question.

She didn't even know if she should be applauding herself for doing the things anybody would have done in her place.

Yuri knew she would need help though, knew herself enough that she needed to think about networking and connecting with those around her for when she needed advice on . . . oh god she didn't even know how to change a diaper! She pressed her hands against her cheeks and huffed.

She was smiling, and it hurt the muscles there, but she couldn't help it. Because what a great problem to have? Problems that didn't involve her past, but involved someone's future, and she just couldn't help it!

"Books, I need books," she whispered to herself as she walked to the store she usually frequented. She'd consider applying for a job there with how often she came by, but now that she was pregnant and had to look after herself and Sasuke, she knew a job would have to wait. For now, she'd be doing her best to give the little sprout in her tummy a fighting chance, because whoever they were had definitely earned the right to be there.

When she was daydreaming, sometimes she imagined the soul was the same one from her old body, that they were _her_ child, the one she'd only had hours to know of. That they could possibly be the same as the one she was carrying now. Maybe it was wish-fulfillment, but she thought she would love to have the chance of making everything up to them. That she could make things right.

Hiyori wasn't a mother yet, but she would be.

She paused in her walking and the smile dispersed.

 _Yuri_ wasn't a mother yet. _Yuri_.

She walked on, and headed into the store only to bump into someone in her haste. She looked up and her mouth dropped at what she saw. A tall man with snow white hair spiked into the air and his iconic mask and shinobi gear right in place. She didn't mean to, but she had no control of her body while she sputtered for a moment.

Well of course she would have needed to meet him sooner or later, he was her kids sensei after all and did she just refer to Sasuke as her kid? Haha, he wasn't _hers_ , well in a way he was, well legally he was now that she'd settled _that_ about a week ago, but now her mind was just going on an unrelated tangent.

"Ah, my bad," she said quickly and slid away for Kakashi to breeze by. She couldn't really see the expression of his, but his one visible eyebrow had been quirked up.

"Don't worry about it," he said and she had to rub at the chills his voice somehow produced. She nodded with jerky movements and rushed on, their arms brushing as she slid past. She felt sickened for a moment at the touch, and had to stuff down those old, familiar feelings.

 _It was nothing, it was nothing,_ she assured herself. _Baby, baby, just need to find some baby books._

The distraction helped and so she forgot about that meeting; it really wasn't anything to call home about.

* * *

 **来年の事を言うと鬼が笑う**

* * *

"Is that so?" Hiruzen said and his brows drew up with the news.

"Yes, sir." Katogaya-sensei replied, she handed him a clipboard for which he thumbed through and smiled at.

"That's good to hear," he mumbled and nodded to himself. It really was. It'd been a wish of his to see Konoha balance itself, but not at the price of lives. The massacre had been a regretful incident, one he'd sought reparations for but could one truly make up for something of that caliber?

Still, it was a soft, quiet joy to note that it wasn't the end for them yet.

* * *

来年の事を言うと鬼が笑う — rainen no koto wo iu to oni ga warau — lit. If you talk about the next year, a demon laughs. It basically means along the lines that you can't predict what's going to happen in the future, cause anything can happen.


	7. A Nail Beaten In

Yuri was standing in the foyer of their new apartment building, her hands set at her hips as a group of genin made their way around and sat the couch and other assorted furniture down. She felt a bit bad that she couldn't really help, but seeing as she was paying them, it didn't matter much.

Sasuke was in school, and he knew about the move, but she didn't think he was very pleased with it. At the very least he didn't fight it, though she wasn't sure what she _could_ have done if he had. How did one punish or force a child that could take her out with a pinkie toe?

Parenting in this world sure was difficult.

"Where do you want these, Uchiha-san?" A pretty girl with light blue hair asked.

That was also something strange in this world, the hair and eye colors. It hadn't been strange to see in her world either, she supposed but then those with hair like that had it _dyed_ , it wasn't real. She didn't know whether to feel jealous that she didn't look as unique as a few others, or happy that she didn't really stand out. Then again, this body wasn't originally hers either so did she have the right to judge it? She was supremely grateful for the chance to be Hiyori and didn't want to risk anything that might offend what ever kind gods had sent her here.

 _I'm grateful, very grateful!_ And it was true, of course. Her heart felt lighter than it had in years. Still, it was such a tentative feeling and she was always afraid of it getting away from her.

She shook her head of thoughts and looked towards the girl with strange hair. Said girl was holding a box of scrolls, written text Yuri had felt uneasy leaving behind in the compound. She couldn't help but feel a bit of anxiety with them in the genin's hands.

"Put them in my bedroom please. I'll sort it out myself." Was it smart of her to hire outsiders?

"Alright!"

Nervously, Yuri wrung her hands and busied herself with ordering the spices in the kitchen cupboards.

She liked the layout of this apartment better than in the house. It was smaller and easier to take care of rather than the traditional minka house they'd lived in prior, which brought a load of ease for her. Taking care of those old buildings was a lot of work, and although she hated to see the clan buildings go to disrepair, she trusted no one to help with its upkeep within its walls. She had to keep them safe, she _had_ to. That was more important than the foundations of an already broken household.

Even having genin handle their things was unnerving for her. What if they saw something they shouldn't? Learned something of them that would further decimate her family? Yuri couldn't let that happen, but it wasn't like a pregnant woman could move all by herself and Sasuke was busy with school. And aside from that she kept expecting Danzo to jump out of nowhere with maniacal laughter, even though that would be completely out of character for him.

On that note, she hated that man. Even though she hadn't really thought of him much since her time here began, she certainly was now. The feeling of becoming one with Hiyori was cementing her in a way that certain memories were becoming harder to ignore. She'd been pushing it aside, what she knew about him and the rest of the world but it just became more acute, no matter how often she tried to convince herself she was a nobody that couldn't deal with anything with her own merits.

She was rubbing at her wrist in nervousness now.

Yuri had cremated all of her family, so she had nothing to worry about, right? He couldn't have taken their eyes, because she'd been there. Well she'd been there after she woke up in the hospital. She'd spent a week out . . . was that enough time to implant her families eyes inside him? She bit her lip. She should have checked their . . . bodies herself. She should have but at the time everything was in chaos, she'd been in damage control mode and on the verge of committing self murder again.

 _Oh god,_ if he had their eyes—Yuri couldn't stand the thought. The feelings it welled within her, the _violation_ of it alone nearly drove her to despair. The theft of Hiyori and Sasuke's precious people had been enough, add onto the gross injustice of further thievery and . . . what could she do? She had to keep a close eye on Sasuke, on her child, and her own self.

Hiyori had never shown an inclination towards the sharingan dojutsu, but it was certainly within her genes and she knew even as a civilian it could awaken late in life. She'd read it in the scrolls the genin were carrying around. She could already possess it, and she'd never really know because Hiyori didn't have much memory of the night of her death, or more, Yuri had yet to relive such horror.

She'd been having a lot of dreams of Hiyori's before nearly every night that accompanied the sudden memories that would hit her at odd moments. Things like remembering how her mother's hair—no, _Hiyori's_ mother—looked in the sunshine, the way Hiyori's father stared so stoically and yet had held her so affectionately. The strange way love was expressed . . .

What could she do if Danzo had their eyes? She couldn't . . . do as Itachi had done. Couldn't raise Sasuke to hate. Too easily it could be done, but what if there was a happier end somewhere in sight? Somewhere where the Uchiha "curse" didn't rear it's ugly head. As if such a thing existed.

Itachi was wrong if he thought that the fastest way towards strength was by flexing your hatred and fury at the world. Sure it was a motivator, but it wasn't the only one.

She might not be a ninja, but she knew the price it paid. Because she was well versed in it. Because she had hated _everything_. She'd hated the world, and she'd hated the men who ruined her. Herself for having allowed herself to be defined by her past, and for having taken it from herself without seeing what could have been. Her parents who'd left her behind. Society for having ignored what went on right underneath their noses. She'd hated it all, and had been miserable doing it.

She could not, no, _would_ not allow the same to be said for Sasuke.

She cared too deeply for him. She knew it wasn't love, didn't know if she was capable of such a thing, but it was as close as she could get and that had to count.

"Uchiha-san?"

"Wha—? Oh, I'm sorry, what was it?" Yuri turned to face the Jounin sensei whose name had slipped by her. He might have been a Ken, might have been a Doichi. He looked normal enough, but so had the men who hurt her. She clenched her fists and forced herself to remain passive. It wasn't like _he_ had hurt her so she had to remain unbiased.

"We're just about done, and the kids were wondering if you wanted to have lunch with us?"

Yuri gave him a tentative smile before she nodded. "I'd like that."

The jounin grinned back, and it was . . . nice. No chills up her spine, no withheld shivers, no nausea in her stomach. To be honest, it was strange to see something so benign on a man like him, especially on one whose work was paid in blood, as it was in most cases.

The both of them headed into the living room that sat close to the kitchen and watched as the three genin followed suit.

"I can make us something," she offered, looking back at the kitchen.

"You'd cook for us, Hiyori-chan?" a cheeky boy asked, and his eyes bugged when the female kunoichi dug her elbow into his side. She felt like she was watching the anime all over again, it was a nice feeling. Comforting.

"Don't speak so familiarly to her, you idiot."

"It's alright," Yuri chuckled, feeling more genuine and less like it was for propriety's sake. She thought of what was fast so the kids could hurry up and have refreshments in time. She could make sandwiches and onigiri but was that really cooking? No, time was of the essence, she'd do what was quick and not what would take too long.

"See, she says it's alright, Ruka." The cheeky boy tipped his chin at the girl in superiority. Ruka glared. Their silent partner just sighed and their teacher smiled fondly. It was their dynamic.

"I'll get started now while you guys finish up," Yuri said, dismissing herself and heading back into the kitchen.

Thirty minutes later she had the dining table set and filled with little sandwiches and balls of onigiri along with some chilled tea. In all honesty, Yuri hadn't anticipated having any guests over so her table was small, seating maybe six people if one were to squish them in together like sardines. Comfortably it sat four, and thus she had four chairs. She'd thought that maybe when Sasuke was older and in Team Seven he could invite his friends over some time.

She hoped it wasn't too much to hope for.

A chair from her office was placed at one of the ends of the table for the jounin with a promise to put it back before they left, and so they all sat and ate while they talked. Or mostly it was the children talking while Yuri watched them in rapt fascination.

These children, unlike her, had grown up in this world. In that way, they had much more in common than she ever would with Sasuke. For some reason she felt lonely thinking that.

"Hiyori-chan, your onigiri tastes real good!" Overhearing their conversations while she cooked she confirmed their names, and the cheeky boy was Minoru.

"Thank you very much," Yuri smiled.

"Can you even speak correctly?" Ruka asked blandly, glaring at Minoru and sipping at her tea.

"This isn't school, that's way behind us. No use speakin' good if it doesn't really matter."

"There is such a thing as tatamae," their mostly silent teammate Toma reminded him politely.

"And there's also honne," Minoru rebuked. "I'd rather live life as my truest self than live a lie, y'know?"

Yuri felt uncomfortable at that. All her life she'd struggled under those two distinct rules. Unspoken rules, but softly oppressive ones. Rules that hurt a minority and allowed the majority, those unwilling to be nailed down in a similar fashion, to prosper. It was easy to tell in which bracket Yuri had fallen.

When the hammer came down, it had come unfaltering.

* * *

 **出る杭は打たれる**

* * *

"It's not as big, but it's perfect for the two—three of us." Yuri had to get used to the three.

"Hn," Sasuke replied. At the noise she found herself rubbing her hands into his hair and patting him. He was too cute when he acted so mature, as sad as it made her simultaneously. The brat scowled, causing her to chuckle.

"Don't worry, you didn't have to lift a finger. I know how lazy you are, and our things are already packed there. I took care of it while you were in school."

Somehow the expression he gave her was a forlorn one although at face value it was bored. It wasn't what she expected. She thought he'd glare and instead he seemed to withdraw.

"We . . . we can stay one more night, and—and don't forget, we can come back here anytime. Don't forget that. This is our _home_ , but thinking on a logical level it's much harder to protect between the two of us so we need a space much smaller. We have to be strong together to be safe, understand?"

He didn't respond right away, instead his shoulders slumped further and his hand in hers went a bit lax. Something about it made her heart ache. Maybe it was in knowing that she had caused his hurt. He didn't want to leave, didn't want to forget and yet here she was, forcing him to. She was guilty in that she _wanted_ to forget. Desperately in fact. The longer she stayed the harder it was to differentiate between who Hiyori had been and who she was now. And knowing she could never be that person in those memories, and as precious as gems as they were, it hurt to carry them.

She wanted to let them go.

Yuri jolted when Sasuke seemed to harden himself and gripped her hand tighter.

"Just one more night," he murmured and she nodded.

The look on his face was only slightly brighter, but he still hadn't smiled at her to reassure her. Sasuke usually didn't make such expressions since that 'fateful' day but sometimes he would for her. They were small but there. In that moment she wanted to see it.

Yuri gave into her instincts and pulled him towards her, wrapping herself around him and holding him tightly. At first he stiffened, then he tried to push her away before he gave into her embrace.

She didn't know what she was trying to tell him, just that she could only say it like this.

She'd been raised against being tactile with others, especially not in public, but she recalled Minoru and his talk of honne. What was the use of social decorum when it served her none? She only had this one soul in that moment to cherish, and she wanted to . . . well she wasn't sure what she wanted. For him not to feel sad mostly.

For this world and every world to stop ruining the children that walked in it.

* * *

 **出る杭は打たれる**

* * *

Ruby sparkles and crimson rivers lined the walls and floors, each door he opened led him to another, and another. It was always the same, open a door and find a puddle, open a door and find a puddle. Crows would dance along his vision and he'd wonder if it would always be like this, if he'd never—he opened a door.

There was a puddle.

In it was his parents. Their heads weren't attached. He didn't even have to look too closely to see that.

His familiar revulsion hit him, his world warping as he struggled to understand, struggled to piece things together in a way that would make sense. Cause none of it made sense. It never did. He clenched his jaws, he wouldn't cry out this time, not this time, definitely won't.

But—

He was going to vomit.

At the center. Between his parents.

Hiyori.

* * *

She wasn't sure what woke her up, actually she was, she just couldn't believe what she was actually hearing.

Yuri flung her covers away from her and dashed out of her room, going as quickly as her legs could go towards the sound of those screams. Her heart was racing, she had to make sure he was okay. What if he was hurt? What if some assassin had come to kill them? Oh no, what if Sasuke was fighting them off!?

The door gave way to his room easily. She flicked the light on to see and was greeted by the sight of her cousin struggling beneath his thick comforter. She didn't think, she hurled his blankets from him and saw him thrashing along his bed and crying out, tears drenching his face and sweat lining his shape.

"Sasuke!" she cried, and nearly jumped at him but hesitated when she remembered that he wasn't a normal boy. He could kill her on accident in this state and then where would they be? She had to think, what could she do?

"Hiyo!" he was crying out for her and she felt tears painfully sear at her eyelids. He was sobbing for her, _begging_ for her. In that moment she didn't care if he hurt her, she slipped onto the bed with him and pounced his thrashing form.

"I'm right here! I'm right here! I'm alright! We're alright!"

She repeated that mantra over and over again as he began to clutch at her for dear life, a keening wail of pure agony leaving his blubbering lips. Oh god, and she couldn't stop that pain. She would take it from him in a heart beat, she would do anything to silence it, to give him nothing but happiness.

"I'm right here . . . right here," she whispered hoarsely, and slowly her mantra became different as she rocked him against his jittery movements. "I love you . . . I love you . . . I love you." The honesty of it was a bittersweet accent against the hurt.

Yuri couldn't lie to herself, this kid was everything to her, and it was clear she was everything to him as he blinked his wide onyx eyes, still so soft from childhood and yet wiped completely of innocence. She was the same as him even as their situations differed. From young ages they'd learned the vicious truth of the world, had seen first hand what happened. She was a child abused, left unloved and without guidance.

She saw him clearer then. Saw him as if she could see the inner depths of his soul. Knew more of him than she had before and realized pieces of his character she'd never seen before.

But right now, Sasuke, in every sense of the word, was just a child, still just a kid.

A little boy in a plot out to destroy him and build him back up to some pseudo-happy ending with him _ostracized_.

"Hi-Hiyo—!" He was gasping for air as if he'd been drowning not too long ago. The longer their eyes locked the easier he calmed and his tears subsided to a silent stream that dripped from his eyelids and across the planes of his pale cheeks.

"Here! Right here!" she assured him.

She wouldn't allow it to happen. She'd be right here, protecting him.

He clutched at her tighter, unlatching his fingers against her shirt to wrap his tiny arms around her neck and pull her closer. She went easily, whispering soothing words and hoping that each one was the right one.

"I-I'm so scared! I-I-I don't know wh-what to do! All I know is I have to protect you! It can't happen again!" he cried out. "But nothing makes sense! None of it! Why did he— _why!?_ _Why weren't we good enough?_ What did we do to deserve it!? _Why . . . ?_ "

She had the answers but wasn't sure if he was ready for it just yet. But even if she did tell him, she hadn't and couldn't agree with Itachi's decision either and wouldn't expect him to at the moment. Not until he became out of reach. She knew it had been a do or die situation, or more, it was a do and an innumerable amount of lives would be taken either way. She was aware of that . . . but still, it was the result of the machinations of a sick, misguided lunatic who didn't understand the value of life.

Yuri swallowed a sob.

She was just the same too, she hadn't valued life either. Not her own or anyone else's.

But she did now, and . . . and she would teach it to Sasuke.

"Sasuke, Sasuke," she breathed out his name. She didn't even know where to start. "Your aniki . . . "

He stiffened against her, another cry muffled against the fabric of her shirt.

"There had to have been a reason, don't you think? You know very well, don't you? Not to take things at face value as there's always a deeper picture beneath the veneer. We just have to look and keep our eyes open to catch it."

"You-you don't . . . hate him?" The question was as soft as a feather and laced heavily in confusion. Makes sense as she bore a scar lovingly painted onto her skin by his dear brother.

"I . . . " How to phrase this, "I am angry. _Furious_. He's a betrayer, killed our kin and for what? For whose sake did Hiy—I lose Tomoharu? If anyone was somehow worthy of that sacrifice, if I could somehow see how things would have turned out the other way around maybe I wouldn't feel so _fucking pissed . . ._ but still . . . despite it all _I_ love the Itachi who loves _you_."

In her head was a picture of a smiling young man with probably the only words that meant something to him printed there in a bubble amongst a world of black and white. Dying words.

 _I love you._

"Hiyo-nee, you're wrong, he doesn't love me. He wants me to hate him like he does me . . . he has to right? Why else would he chose _me_ to live?" So much vulnerability in that voice.

"Sasuke it's simple. He wants you to become strong enough to kill him so that he can die at the hands of an avenger. He wants to pollute you with hatred so he can selfishly attain the bit of happiness of seeing you beat him fair and square. He wants you powerful enough to destroy all enemies of the Uchiha clan, to bring us back from the brink and show us a new way of living. And Sasuke? You should know his words aren't everything. There are other ways to obtain power."

She wished she could tell him he didn't have to be strong, that he could stay this way forever and be okay, but she was a realist at heart. He had to be strong enough to save the world with Naruto.

"Hatred is a painful, painful thing Sasuke. There's nowhere to breath, nowhere you can run without it taking over every waking thought, wondering how on earth can you end it? Revenge? Fleeing? Doing something unspeakable? It permeates the fog of your mind and all you can think is of blood, of your revenge, of paying those who hurt you a thousand times in hell. But the thing is, it's a disease of the mind that hurts you more than it could ever do any good for someone else."

"Then how else am I supposed to get strong!?" He sounded frustrated, angry.

"There's no cure for hatred other than its opposite, so what's just as strong, if not stronger?"

"Are you making fun of me?" He relaxed his grip on her and pulled away to show her his face. His expression was one of intense grief and scorn all rolled into one. "Love?"

Following instinct she kissed the furrow between his brow. "Don't knock it 'til you try it." She herself felt stronger just for having another existence so dependent on her and it was all thanks to him, for being his quiet self and allowing her a reprieve she'd never had before.

Naruto was a great example of what choosing to love did for someone. He had just as good a reason to absolutely despise a village he was neglected by and instead he pined for their affection by showing the world just what grit and tenacity he had. Of course, she couldn't imagine her Sasuke or any Sasuke for that matter to go gun's in a blazin' about his ninja way or what not. He was much more subtle than that. He would march in and take things in stoic force. The Uchiha way.

Yuri took a moment to think. Was she doing as Itachi had done to him? Manipulating him to go in a more favorable direction for her sake? And if she was, was it wrong? All she could really do was give him the facts as she knows it, but would that be enough? If she lost him in the interim of him leaving Konoha for Orochimaru, what on earth could she do? The thought was a haunting one.

Sasuke pulled back and rubbed at his face as he sat up. Then he blinked at his surroundings and a slight blush rose to his cheeks in his embarrassment.

"Real shinobi know when to cry," Yuri spoke teasingly. His cheeks reddened further as he scowled at her, daring her to impede further. _Well if you insist_ , "You're a person, not a tool. Tool's break. People do not fold so easily."

She had a moment to think if what she truly believed in what she was saying. Hadn't she not so long ago thought of herself as a broken object, as Sasuke being much the same? If she herself was a person who broke . . .she realized in that moment in her past she'd been a tool after all. An object of desire mistreated and handled so poorly she'd shattered.

Yuri thought of swords.

You could always remake one and forge it to be stronger than the last by melting it down and changing the way you handled the heat, the way you shaped it, when to temper it. Maybe death had been like that for her, a breaking and a reshaping of who she had been. And she was still changing.

The same could be said of Sasuke, but he wasn't a tool just yet. And if she had her way, he never would be.

He looked at her, at the open hallway, then at his bed.

"Will you stay with me tonight?" He actually sounded like a child then, and not the robotic semi-adult she'd first encountered.

In response to his question she slipped from the bed to turn off the light and quickly climbed back in.

"Right here I will," she then murmured, pulling him close. He hesitated at first, but ultimately leaned in and slowly fell into a deep slumber.

* * *

出る杭は打たれる — deru kui wa utareru — lit. the nail that sticks out gets hammered in. In short it means it's best to keep your head down and avoid being whats different from the norm. It goes along the same ideas and ideals of what tatemae and honne are. Honne is the sense of true self, the way you can be in private while tatemae is what you aspire to be in the face of society (being perfect little worker bees.) Japan is real big on conformity, if you can't tell.

By the way sorry for not updating in so long! Life, y'know?


	8. Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight

It was May, and her birthday had past a few days ago. She was seventeen.

Yuri didn't know how she felt about that.

 _Crack!_

She flinched a bit even as she expected the sound. As an afterthought she listened as the room filled with the same echoing sound of pottery being shattering onto the flooring. This was purposeful wreckage in the pursuit of learning and de-stressing. How odd was that?

She did have the thought—is this safe for pregnant women? But it wasn't like she could endanger her child by breaking dirt cheap pottery. Just herself if she nicked her fingers or something.

"Ok, at your side is the lacquer based concoction and the adhesive. You'll want to mix the two before taking your brushes and working it between the cracks."

She looked at the cup full of exactly as the sensei told them it would be and wondered if this was the bastardized version of true kintsugi art. It wasn't like they had liquid gold or the time to harden the gold and solidify it. So they were pretty much using glue and a lacquer filled with gold flakes. Or something. She didn't exactly know what was in the concoction.

She did know that she quite liked smashing the pottery, and liked even more the reshaping of the pot and making it prettier than before. She'd done it once before but the sensei always reinstructed the class when new students came and that was generally every session.

This was her second time coming here, and she'd started last week.

Piling the shards of the pottery she took the biggest pieces and set about finding matching patterns.

Kintsugi wasn't actually that hard, not when it was like this.

"You have a fine eye," a voice said and she looked up to see the sensei right in front of her. She gave him a soft smile. He was a very old man with white hair and wrinkles marring his leathery looking skin. Meaning he was just a bit safer than most men. Catching sight of the red fan on the sleeves of her shirt he released a soft, knowing breath.

Yuri didn't react. Most people that she knew hated being pitied, and in the past she did, too, but nowadays she could see that most people were also genuinely good ones. Ones that became sad for those who became victims through life. So when she saw it in the old man's gaze she looked away and nodded towards him.

"It's in my blood," she said lightly and dabbed her brush with the golden mixture. Carefully she lined one of the broken curves and took it's matching partner and pressed it back on.

Yuri wasn't really lying. Her vision was far better than it had been in her own body. Hiyori's eyes were superior in every way, she noticed small details she hadn't before, saw color differently, saw _more._ She was sure it was because she was an Uchiha. That or she was now able to see past the haze of sadness of before, lightening the world around her and filling every flower with more color, every rosebud a vibrant shade.

"Are you a painter?" the sensei asked. She looked at him with a frown. Yuri certainly was not, Hiyori however was a different story. She grew up with an artist grandmother, had taken lessons from her and Yuri remembered them only because technically she was Hiyori.

She nodded towards the man at the same time she wondered whether or not she would have to one day forget the days she was Ueda Yuriko. If one day would come and she'd without a doubt think of herself as Uchiha Hiyori.

Yuri decided it was likely but . . . not just yet.

* * *

 **七転び八起き**

* * *

After lessons they were allowed to keep the pottery they worked on, so she was walking home with it in wrapped safely in a cloth in a bag at her side when she walked into someone. She'd been so caught up in her head that she hadn't seen it coming. Or more, him.

They both blinked at each other, and she felt the tight revulsion in her gut when she looked at him while at the same time stared in quiet awe. It was like before, like the day they met. At this point she wasn't sure if he was doing it on purpose. He was a shinobi after all; if he didn't want to be walked into, he'd have gotten out of the way. The acknowledgement of that sent flutters into her stomach. None of them good. It wasn't her child kicking, she knew that much.

"Excuse me," she murmured politely, struggling to keep the smile on her face.

The expression on his face, of what she could see of it, was that of an easy grin.

Let no one think Hatake Kakashi was not the finest man she'd ever seen. Another rush of revulsion filled her at the thought until her lips were pursed into a straight line.

Yuri understood she had a bias against men ages twenty to forty years old, and she had valid reasons for them. But she also knew that there were nice people in the world, that not all men were disgusting perverts. She also knew Kakashi wasn't one of them (a disgusting pervert), that he read Jiraiya's porn but that wasn't really anything at all similar to Junichi and the rest.

She had to work on this aversion, she really did. Sasuke was seven for now, but when he grew up to be a young man, she _had_ to be okay. And what if her own child was a boy? She couldn't stand the thought of inflicting either of them with her hatred, be it intentional or not. Besides, no one in this world would understand her. It wasn't as if Hiyori had the same past as her, she'd been in a loving relationship before Itachi did his number.

"Do you need help carrying that?" Kakashi asked and she blinked in surprise. Yuri frowned. Was this Kakashi being late for something? Something like Obito would do, _I was just helping a pregnant woman carry her things_. Something like that. Thinking of Sasuke she nodded her head, plastering a smile on her face. Thinking of that boy always brought a smile. A sure thing.

His fingers brushed against her as he took it her bag. She bit her inner cheek, fought for the expression that was fleeting.

"Thank you, shinobi-san." Should Yuri know who he is? Hiyori had never met him, but then, ninja were pretty popular and the Copy Ninja was one of the most famous. Or infamous, depending.

"Hatake Kakashi," he introduced, his eyes smiling. He could probably see how much she disliked him.

"Uchiha Hiyori," she replied. The lie was smooth. Even she believed it.

The two of them started walking companionably when she realized she could use this opportunity to go for some shopping. She'd refrained since Sasuke wasn't around, but they were out of certain things. She looked at Kakashi and wondered if he'd go for it.

"Are you busy, Hatake-san?"

"Not at all," he said. If she could see the rest of his face, she'd know if he was smiling or not. Would it put her at semi ease like the jounin she'd met a while ago? Probably not.

"Would it trouble you to help me shop for some things? I could pay you." As the last words left her mouth an epiphany hit her. Kakashi was probably here as some sort of protection buffer against some threat. She was sure she had enemies, not all of them Danzo. Hiruzen was hardly aware of what that man was up to, so it wasn't like it was him. But other countries would be interested in her as well. She was, after all, the sole female Uchiha. A pregnant female Uchiha.

( _After her child was born, would they take it and try to breed her for another? A terrifying thought._ )

Kumo would no doubt be looking into her. They'd been after Konoha's dojutsu's for years, right? Things like Hinata's near kidnappings didn't just happen because they wanted to drop in on some fun. And she was an easier target than child Hinata had ever been. Hinata had her entire clan's, and her entire villages backing even if she had been a small child. Yuri had no such privileges; she was physically weak as a civilian, again very pregnant, and lived with a seven year old in the academy. As it made her one, it made _Sasuke_ was an easy target.

She almost didn't hear Kakashi's words through the worry permeating in her head space.

"—worry about it. I'll do it for free." Yuri sent him her first genuine smile in his presence. Suddenly, she was _glad_ he was here.

"Nonsense," she told him as they took a turn for the markets. As they walked, she felt a slight pressure in her stomach and placed her hand there. The soft flutter there, _that_ was her child. "Good deeds should not go unrewarded."

"I suppose," Kakashi murmured. His shoulder brushed hers, causing her to stomach another wave of disgust. Was he doing it on purpose? "So, Uchiha-san, what do you do for fun?"

Yuri glanced at him and shrugged. She wondered whose ears were going to be privy to their conversation. "Reading mostly. Gardening. Kintsugi most recently."

His brows drew up. "Kintsugi?"

Nodding, she gestured to the bag he was carrying. "It's very enjoyable. Inside is the second pot I've fixed."

At her behest he dug in and pulled it out, unwrapping it from the protective cloth. He glanced over it and cocked his head her way. "It's nice."

"Thank you, I'm still a beginner, but I thought I needed something to break the monotony of my day. It's been . . . hard." Yuri scrunched her shoulders inwardly when she noticed her slip. She'd been beginning to relax. It was odd. Was it because she felt like she knew him? Yuri knew everything there was to know of Hatake Kakashi, after all. Not that he'd been a favorite, like Sasuke, she simply ate up anything that was Naruto. (She was a bit embarrassed to note Itachi had been her favorite, until . . . well, it was a bit obvious why he was no longer.)

Then again, Kakashi _was_ a ninja. Was he wooing information out of her without her realizing it?

Changing the subject, she asked, "And you?"

He slipped the pottery back into its cradle and bagged it once more. He was quiet before he said, "Reading as well. What sort of books interest you?"

Yuri felt like she was cheated from the truth. He had to have another hobby other than reading. Something ninja related. Then again, he was as far from civilian as one could get. She knew that during this time period before Naruto he'd been a bit of a workaholic. Was he still anbu? He certainly couldn't be a normal jounin.

"I like . . . a variety. I like stories that aren't real, I suppose. Maebuchi Takara-sensei I've been reading recently writes mainly in a fantasy genre and I've found I quite like what he writes. I like mysteries as well, adventure stories and things of that nature. I dislike romances." She gazed at him for his response.

"No romance?" His gaze was filled with mirth. "Didn't you select one of Jiraiya's works?"

Yuri was amused as well, at Kakashi for slipping that he'd been watching her and at his assuming she would actually flat out lie to him. "He has quite the famous name so I was curious if he'd live up to it. And he did, I liked his Gutsy Ninja. Naruto was as fun as he was annoying."

Perhaps this was when both of their smiles had become genuine. "Ah, but what did you think of his Icha Icha Paradise?"

"Honestly?" She thought about it. Yuri had hardly stomached reading it. She liked a few of the plot points, but she couldn't see herself continuing to read the series. Her head just couldn't get past what sort of man had wrote it. Some parts had been genuinely nice, she supposed, sweet even. But the nicer it had been, the more it disconcerted her. "It was well written, the characters weren't annoying and if it weren't for the sex scenes and the subject matter, I would have probably liked it."

Kakashi cocked his head. "That's a shame."

Maybe he thought it strange how she reacted to him, if he was aware of it, and thought it weird for a pregnant woman to have qualms with sex in books. Clearly she'd had it, seeing as she was pregnant and he no doubt knew. She might still have a small stomach in comparison to what it would be like when she'd reach October, but she definitely showed through her thin shirt. It was probably made more obvious due to her petite frame.

"You didn't share what genres you like," she pointed out.

"Ah, right." He scratched at his chin and regarded her for a quiet moment. Then he winked and replied, "I like romances." Was that supposed to be cute? _Had it been?_ What a dangerous man.

It was the first conversation she'd had with a man in her biased age group that she'd found herself easing into, and it was only slightly a shock that while she'd shopped around they were able to share some banter. Yuri found herself enjoying this outing with Kakashi the young man. And she realized that's exactly what he was. She had to think for a moment on how old he'd be at this moment, earliest she thought maybe eighteen, latest twenty-one. She felt he was most likely somewhere in the middle.

"Do _you_ need anything while we're here?" she asked after her shopping was done. Kakashi shook his head.

"Is this all?" he asked and she nodded. She felt bad he was carrying most of her stuff for her, but then he had those muscles and she _was_ pregnant. Pregnant people had leeway. Right?

"What exactly are you making?" he asked looking at the bags he he held. He'd probably noted each and every item.

"Not all of them are for tonight but I'm making something called spaghetti for dinner tonight. My—" Yuri caught herself as she almost referred to Sasuke as her _son_. (It's how she secretly thought of him even though she knew it wouldn't be welcomed by the kid. He longed for his own parents, not her.) "—cousin likes tomatoes very much so I'm trying out something new for him."

" _Supagechii?"_ Kakashi asked with a frown. Yuri almost smirked. Almost.

She wasn't surprised though. Konoha was very eastern in its meals, but Yuri had been a hafu living in Tokyo, Japan. Her first language may have been Japanese, but her second had been English. She'd grown up with it, and although not as adept, she definitely sounded American when she spoke it. (Okay, so she had a slight accent.) Knowing foreign words were hard to pronounce didn't stop the amusement she felt in hearing Kakashi try to speak it.

"It's a noodle based meal with tomato sauce and meat."

"What kind of noodles, ramen? Udon?"

She smiled at the thought of ramen or udon being the based noodles. It just wasn't right.

"No, not at all. A different kind of noodle. It's called pasta. I'll be making it from scratch."

Kakashi appeared intrigued.

Yuri bit her lip, already regretting it as she said, "I suppose if you'd like, in exchange for helping me out today you can come for a plate. If Sasuke doesn't mind, you can even stay for dinner. If he does though you'll have to settle for a container."

He'd probably have to settle for the container. Sasuke certainly didn't like outsiders, and anyone besides her was an outsider.

Kakashi thought for a moment and then nodded. "I'll take you up on that."

His arm brushed hers again. She clenched her teeth and forced herself to relax. _Aversion training._ _Aversion training. This man is in your future regardless, Yuri. Get used to it._

Remembering the sort of person he'd been in the show actually helped. But it also made his actions even more suspect. He'd never really shown any inclinations towards women or men in the show or manga, and aside from his apparent obsession with Icha Icha, she didn't think he'd ever been romantically involved with someone. He hadn't even ended up with anybody.

But he kept brushing up beside her. Was it on accident, or not? She hoped it was an accident. He'd never seemed like the tactile sort, but then she'd known him through a lens. Maybe he actually liked putting moves on strangers, who knows. Then again, like her, he probably felt like he knew her. He had, after all, most likely been watching her. He'd noticed her pick out the Icha Icha book, and that hadn't been the time she'd met him in search of baby books. It'd been on her first time at the bookstore.

For some reason she wasn't unnerved by the thought of him watching her. It'd probably been his job, and if it meant she had a modicum of safety, she welcomed his prying eyes. She couldn't fight, it was a blessing someone was watching out for her that could. Besides, he probably wasn't the only one assigned to her.

Yuri frowned. She looked at the bags in his hands and wondered if there were any tomatoes in the house for the sauce. She hadn't picked up any.

"One more stop," she told Kakashi and started heading towards the compound. Nervousness tripped her pulse, but she ignored it. Kakashi _had_ the sharingan, and unlike Danzo (hopefully Danzo didn't have it), had attained it rightfully as a gift. She wondered if that made him an honorary Uchiha. Probably not. The clan probably couldn't even stand the fact he possessed one of their eyes.

It didn't take long to reach the compound as they'd been close to the apartment. She fished out a key from her coin purse and unlocked the gates before pushing them open. Kakashi hesitated, but stepped in when she waved him in.

She wondered what he thought of her home as they made their way to the main house where she had her garden in the back. It was empty, quiet. Peaceful. It didn't stop the sharp pain her chest when she remembered Hiyori's loved ones. Yuri's loved ones as a consequence. An oppressive weight dawned on her shoulders.

The main house was in the center of the compound, and as it was pretty much a mini village they past houses upon houses as they walked. When she'd first come, she couldn't have named one other Uchiha other than the ones that she knew. Now she could remember each house and who they had been. Even those she hadn't been very close to, that's just how Hiyori had been. She'd loved her clan more than anything.

It made it hard to fathom why Itachi had been driven to choose the village. She was biased now.

"Have you ever been here before?" she asked him in all curiosity.

"No," Kakashi said.

Makes sense. Outsiders were rarely allowed entry unless necessary or with absolute trust. The Uchiha simply didn't trust others easily, family was held above all else. It made it sadder, what happened.

"Your eye," she noted, "It's Obito-nii-san's right?" Hiyori had vague impressions of Obito from when she was a child. She'd probably been eight or nine when he'd "died", but he'd helped her a number of times when some of the other Uchiha children would pick on her for having an outsider mother. He'd been such a cute older brother.

Kakashi nodded, it was a very slight movement. Not that she needed the confirmation.

"In your case, I'm glad a part of him is with you." It was her honest feelings, specifically they had been Hiyori's as well. She hadn't taken the news of his death very well, and even though most of the clan wanted to have the eye surgically removed, she'd personally been against it.

"That's surprising," he said just as they reached the main house. She shrugged. Kakashi and her were apparent strangers, and yet they'd spent the whole afternoon talking with one another. Did others do this? (The only time she'd ever trusted a stranger she'd ended up regretting life.) She couldn't deny that she'd liked it. Even talk of gruesome things like Obito's "death" or the silent acknowledgement of the rest of her clans demise.

They didn't enter the front door. Instead, she led him to the back garden and grabbed for one of her baskets she had set onto back porch just for this kind of occasion. It'd rained last night so she didn't have to worry about watering, a blessing in all honesty.

She ignored Kakashi as she crossed towards her tomato stalks, fingering at the red flesh and plucking from the stem. After plucking a few she decided that was enough and gave a soft smile towards the Copy Ninja.

Sasuke would be happy with the fruit of their labor.

"Alright, now to the apartment," she told him. Did he think it weird she'd invited him into the compound and would later invite him into her home? As they walked back and softly chatted about the same books they'd been discussing, she wondered if she was being stupid and naive, or polite. Was she viewing him with her lens of foresight and insight she had in regards to him and ignoring the fact he could also be an enemy?

Yuri blew out a small breath. She had to stop thinking so hard. The conversation was waning, and Yuri found she didn't want it to stop. Even if it was just inconsequential ramblings. She hadn't had an extended conversation with anyone but her doctor and Sasuke in what felt like years. As long as he didn't touch her, she could pretend she was okay.

"You said you like mysteries, what kind are your favorite?"

Yuri shrugged. "The kind you don't see coming, where it's very subtle in what's going on. If it's a book, I like being taken by surprise."

Kakashi's eyes smiled in his signature way. "I take it you don't usually like surprises."

"Definitely not." God knows she'd had too many.

Yuri's apartment was on the second level of a nice apartment building, but she didn't have too many neighbors. Despite being so close to the Academy, people still felt a bit weird about the Uchiha Massacre. But who could blame them? The Uchiha used to have largest body in terms of numbers for a clan. Their absence was felt.

She opened the door to the apartment for the both of them and stepped in to hold it open for Kakashi. Here he didn't hesitate. Shutting the door behind him, she gestured to guest slippers she'd had the foresight to buy when she realized the inevitably in hosting some people. Kakashi stepped out of his sandals just as she did, gently maneuvering the grocery bags dangling from his hands.

"They weren't too heavy, were they?" she asked.

He sent her an amused glance. She guessed for him it was nothing.

Well, whatever.

Once they had their indoor slippers on she led him to the kitchen where just besides it sat an open dining room. Kakashi sat the bags down and she waved at him to sit in one of the chairs.

"Want any help?"

She shook her head with a doubtful look.

"No, no thank you. I have this well in hand." She took her apron from a rack on the wall and tied it at her waist.

Yuri had made homemade spaghetti a few times so it wasn't knew to her. It'd just been a while, about a year? She retrieved a few eggs from one of the carton's in the fridge and grabbed the bag of flour she'd purchased that day. She grabbed a mixing bowl and measured a cup of flour dumped it in. Then she measured another cup of flour deciding she would make enough for four people. Her reasoning was that Sasuke was a growing boy, Kakashi was a man and probably ate a lot of calories anyways to keep health, and she had another mouth to feed in her belly. She frowned. She'd make enough for six.

If there were leftovers they could eat it tomorrow.

"Good plan," she murmured to herself.

"What time does Sasuke-kun get home?" Kakashi asked, she glanced at him to see he was slouching a bit and watching her motions with an eye that missed nothing.

"Three. I have a timer that will ring when I need to pick him up."

"You pick him up?" There was a frown in his voice. He had to have known already, but maybe he hadn't understood her need to see to Sasuke's return to her every day so he'd been waiting to ask. "When it's so close?"

She felt a blush rise to her face. She knew she was babying him. "It's helped . . . since . . . " Yuri winced.

"I get it," Kakashi said. Yuri didn't speak for a while as she went on with kneading the dough that would become noodles. It didn't take long, maybe thirty minutes. The sauce would take longer, but it would be the true surprise for Sasuke.

He'd get to see most of it if he stuck around to watch her cook. Mostly, Sasuke spent his free time training at the compound. He probably thought the move was inconvenient to him in that way, but she'd noticed him sleeping better. _She_ slept better. They'd been sharing a bed recently, which made her supremely happy. As a child, she had no memories of sleeping with her parents, but she did of sleeping with her grandmother. It'd been the warmest her heart had been, and since then, she'd been experiencing it once more. The purest love she'd ever felt, and she was just so _grateful_.

Just as Sasuke needed her, she needed him.

The timer rung just as she was setting the dough to sit.

Yuri smiled.

"You're too trusting," Kakashi said the moment she took her apron off and hung it on the rack. She cocked her head his way. "Or more, why aren't you super paranoid about someone attacking you?"

She didn't really know what to say. In all honesty, she _wasn't_ trusting. She'd agonized over her decision to involve genin's with the move in the first place. Could hardly stand to hold a conversation with anyone but her doctor and her ward. But she couldn't very well explain how he was a special case, that she knew more of him than he thought anybody did, probably ever would.

"Is this about the lack of traps here? Because Sasuke doesn't really know very much and I'm a civilian with no knowledge of trip grenades or tags or whatnot. I'm not stupid, I could really hurt myself and Sasuke's lost enough as is." She regarded him with level eyes. "Or is this because I invited you into the compound? Here? The Uchiha clan is a dead clan, Hatake-san, and even if we don't really know each other very well, Obito-nii-san gifted you that eye for a reason. No pun intended, he saw something in you. Trusted you."

Kakashi studiously looked away. Discussing Obito really was hard for him. _Well, suck it up,_ she thought. The same could go for her.

"And besides, I know you and probably a dozen other anbu members have been tailing me," she paused. Was it cool to let him know she knew he was anbu, that sort of stuff was a secret, right? Whatever. "I figure it's protection detail, but what do I know? I'm a simple civilian."

Yuri rolled her eyes and waved him forward. They had to get Sasuke, and even if she did trust Kakashi minutely—not for the reason she gave—she didn't trust him alone with their _things_.

Kakashi sighed. "What gave it away?"

"Icha Icha Paradise. I made the purchase long before I ever first ran into you." He paused, and then he was eye smiling at her. She would have smiled back if she wasn't filled with a new worry. "So, you would know, is there any danger lurking? Any country that wants to kidnap me for sordid things? Any side group of the village that wants Sasuke or I? Anything like that?"

Yuri knew he probably couldn't answer those things, even to the one being protected, but it was worth a shot.

"Don't worry about it," he said, reminding her of the day they met. "You're safe." Was it just her that heard the echoing _probably?_

* * *

七転び八起き — nana korobi ya oki — lit. fall seven times, get back up eight. This proverb means to pretty much never give up, and to rise after every failure.

I have to say, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for all of the kind reviews I've received. I did not expect to get so many especially since it'd been a while since I'd updated (assumed I'd get like five at most) and it's not like this fic is super popular, but my god! 30 reviews for one chapter! So nice, ahhhh ;-;

Anyways, this was beta'd by my sister, Jiemae.


	9. The Eyes Can Tell Stories Too

Sasuke refused to look away first, wondering who the hell this strange guy was.

He looked familiar the way most well known shinobi did, but he couldn't place him. Hiyori had introduced him as a family friend, but he didn't buy it. Hiyori was kind in the way most people in this world weren't. She saw good in everyone, even in his brother who'd nearly murdered her.

Sasuke's grip on his cousin's hand tightened and his eyes narrowed further. Kakashi simply chuckled and looked at Hiyori, a wealth of humor in his eyes. He regarded Sasuke like he was a joke, inciting the flame in his chest to rise higher. He'd show this guy in a few years.

He didn't like the way the jounin was looking at her, didn't like how he presumed to walk so close.

"What do you do for a living?" he asked.

"I'm a jounin, so missions mostly."

"Hatake-san has been watching us since the incident," Hiyori cut in. "Making sure other villages and enemies of the clan don't attack us while we're still recovering. We have a lot to thank him for."

Sasuke certainly didn't take it that way.

"So you're a stalker?"

"Sta—wha—?" Hiyori burst into laughter while Kakashi just blinked at him. The sound warmed him from the inside, she didn't laugh often enough so it was almost like a special treat.

"Sasuke, we're in a bit of a peculiar situation," Hiyori said between laughter. "It's important that other's wanting our dojutsu don't get a hold of us. Because of that, Hatake-san is a bit more like a ghostly protector than a stalker."

"Ghost protector? Then why is he here now? Shouldn't he be making sure we can't see him?" Like he _has_ been doing, went unsaid.

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head in a sheepish gesture. Sasuke didn't trust anyone who couldn't do a competent job.

"Well, she looked like she needed help."

She probably _hadn't_ needed help. Sasuke was almost sure of it. Hiyori gave Kakashi a doubtful look as well, confirming it for him.

"And how are you a family friend?" Sasuke asked, his disbelief clear in his tone.

"Er . . . well," Kakashi started.

"He was Obito-nii-san's teammate and friend," Hiyori said, drawing Sasuke's attention to her.

She looked pretty today, although she always looked that way. Her hair had grown since they'd started living together. It used to be cut into a bob that at ended above her shoulders, but now it hit just a little bit past that. He hoped she didn't cut it. Then she'd look a bit like his mom . . . and, well he knew no one could ever replace her but Hiyori came close. And he didn't want reminders to be painful anymore.

He figured the closer she looked to Mikoto, the easier it would be for him to come to terms with things. Or maybe it'd make it worse, he didn't know. Then again, Hiyori had one of those baby faces and his mom had always looked mature and motherly. Even knowing she was pregnant he still couldn't picture his cousin that way. She felt more like a big sister than anything.

"Obito?" Sasuke asked, getting himself back on track.

"Oh yeah, you were really small when he died, weren't you." It wasn't a question.

Hiyori laughed again, strange considering her prior words.

"You know, he was a bit like your classmate, Naruto. Rambunctious, always getting into trouble. Except, he was always helping people. Like old ladies crossing the street, or pregnant ladies by carrying their things. It made him late a lot. In fact, I don't remember one time where he _was_ on time."

Sasuke thought of Naruto and wondered at the great amount of fondness he heard in Hiyori's voice. He hoped it wasn't for the blonde idiot. The two couldn't be _that_ similar, and Hiyori had only met that loser once. She didn't know what she was talking about. Naruto was annoying at the very least. He supposed in the same way Obito was always late, Naruto was always obnoxious.

While Hiyori looked at ease discussing their deceased family member, almost even peaceful, Kakashi went silent. His eyes looked a bit vacant. Sasuke wondered if him and Obito had been good friends before he died. It had to have happened quite a while ago though if he didn't remember him.

His chest hurt.

Sasuke wouldn't remember most of his clan when he was older. Already their faces were dispersing in his head until they all just looked like blobs of color against the red soaked backdrop of his nightmares. It was the only place he could see their faces and remember if only for a moment, who they'd been. He wondered if Hiyori had dreams like him, although his had started to come sparingly ever since they'd moved out. He thought it had more to do with sleeping with Hiyori than it did leaving the compound though.

But Hiyori was happy . . . or happier than a few months ago at least.

He noticed that sometimes her expression would still become grim, or there were days she wouldn't leave her bed save to cook him meals, and even that would wear her out. But they were few and far between compared to how dead she used to look. Again those moments did occur. Times she would start crying if something reminded her of someone. He thought it was Tomoharu who she thought of most often because she would get this uneasy expression when she looked at her growing stomach. Like she was elated, mourning, and unsure all at once.

Sasuke felt much the same.

He never said anything about it, but he knew how difficult everything was for her. How difficult caring for him—even if he'd never asked for it—was. Yet she never once complained, and she was always solid when he needed her.

"Sasuke?" Hiyori murmured, breaking him from his thoughts.

"Hm?"

"You know you should invite friends over if you want." She grinned down at him, the expression causing his whole world to flood with color. He didn't know she did it, managed to make everything seem brighter than it was before. She was just so calm, level headed, and always soothing. Maybe he could see her as a mother.

Then he realized what she'd suggested, and his chest started hurting again.

Sasuke didn't have any friends.

He had classmates, but that was it. It wasn't like he wanted friends though anyways. Everyone around him was annoying and they all acted like idiots, especially the girls. Hiyori was a bit different than other girls in that she seemed to have actual brain cells.

"Listen, I know you don't like him, so how about a deal? I won't invite Hatake-san over if _you_ invite someone tomorrow," she brokered. "Your poor onee-san is very lonely. She misses the sound of people, you know?" Sasuke saw the jounin sputter for a moment right before he broke into a whooping laughter.

He knew what Hiyori was doing, she wasn't even being sly about.

Still, Hiyori liked unnecessary noise where he disliked it. She played music a lot, or she hummed when it was off and she told him outlandish stories she seemed to make up on the spot just to fill the space. It could be a tale about two little kids coming across a house made of candy and then being eaten by the angry obaa-san that lived there. Hiyori seemed to enjoy tales like that, he didn't think she believed happy endings existed.

Anyways, Hiyori liked sound, that was the point. And Sasuke didn't make much sound.

For a split second he felt . . . weird. Like he wasn't enough for her, even though he should be. She was everything to him, and he thought it unfair she would think he wasn't for her. She'd been talking about Naruto earlier, and now she was mentioning sound when Naruto made the most out of everyone he knew. Is that who she wanted?

A green feeling over swept him. He did't know what it was, but he didn't like it.

"No," Sasuke said. "You don't need anybody but me."

Hiyori blinked her onyx eyes at him, the sun making them look brighter. She smiled at him, easing the uneasy feeling in his chest. They were near the house when she pulled him in for a hug. He looked straight at Kakashi while she did so, narrowing his eyes at him in challenge. He didn't know what he was challenging for, but he felt it necessary to let the jounin know that Hiyori was his.

"Of course all I need is you," she cooed in his ear, and then she laid a chaste kiss along his cheek. He felt his lips tease a smile before he could stop it. She caught it when she pulled back, her own grin broadening. "But a house cannot stand with one pillar keeping it steady. Friends help, y'know. You don't have to have many, they just have to be of quality."

Sasuke pursed his lips. There really was a lonely note in her voice, as if she knew what it felt for a house to crumble. And of course she did, and so did he. But while the notion made sense, the thought that he could make any friendships with his classmates wasn't one he could easily envision. Maybe Hyuuga Neji from the class above; he didn't posture for others the way everyone else did and he seemed actually serious about the school work and training. But not Naruto.

Before they stepped into the apartment building Hiyori looked at Sasuke.

"Do you mind if Hatake-san stays for dinner? He helped me out earlier today, and I want to repay him."

"So? Give him money."

"I'm here for the _supagechi,_ _"_ Kakashi put in, and his eyes twinkled as he said it. "Hiyori described it as a noodle dish with a tomato sauce, and it's weird enough that my interest has been piqued." Sasuke glared with all he was worth. As if that was it. Something about Kakashi was fishy, but Sasuke couldn't quite place why. What reasons did this man have for getting closer to his cousin?

"I'm trying something new with the tomatoes we grew, I thought he might enjoy that a bit more than money," Hiyori said lightly. Sasuke frowned at that. "That and he's already declined payment in cash."

"You picked the tomatoes without me?" He didn't like that. It didn't sit well at all. More and more he disliked this shinobi that had stepped in. Even if he _had_ helped his cousin. She was _his_ to help. No one else's.

"Just a few," Hiyori replied breezily. Then she caught his expression and her brows pinched in worry. "I'm sorry, I should have waited . . ."

He shrugged, hating her sad expression.

"It's alright, what are you doing with the tomatoes?"

Her smile came to life. "I've made something with you in mind and I hope you like it!"

Sasuke smirked. "I'm sure it will be good. How long will it take?"

"Oh," Hiyori tapped her chin. "About two hours. Now that think of it, that's quite a while to wait."

Sasuke looked back down the street in the direction of his clan home and thought it perfect time to practice some things that they'd learned in class.

"I'll go train," he said.

Kakashi cocked his head. "I'll come with."

Hiyori looked a bit surprised by the offer.

"I'll make sure he doesn't stab himself in the eye," Kakashi said as way of explanation. It was too cheerful for Sasuke to actually believe him.

His cousin frowned a bit but didn't say no. Sasuke scowled. He didn't need a babysitter, he'd been training by himself for months now. Still, he rolled his eyes and decided he'd ignore the man.

Hiyori waved them off with a small, unsure smile.

Kakashi tagged behind Sasuke, a watchful eye on him. Sasuke didn't want to bring him into the clan compound, knowing the jounin would trail after him, so he'd decided to go to one of the public training fields. There were plenty all over Konoha, but none of them were as impeccable or as well well designed as his families. Still, it would do. He just needed open space anyways.

Before he started, Sasuke did as he always did, and thought about his reasons for becoming stronger.

He _had_ to. It was the reason he was still alive, why he got up in the morning even when all he wanted to do is stay curled against Hiyori. It was _for_ his cousin, that he had to. She'd mentioned earlier that people around the world would want their eyes, and he could see the appeal in having those of their village protect them, but it chafed him. Sasuke didn't want protection, didn't want to be spared where no one else had been, he wanted to _be_ the protector.

For his baby cousin to be born whom he was starting to regard as a little brother or sister.

Sasuke took a deep breath. He didn't want to hurt others as easily as Itachi had. Didn't want his existence to mean the end of another. So he had to find another way than the path his brother had wanted to pave for him. Strength for the sake of killing was not strength after all. It was something he'd started to realize in the wake of his families genocide.

He took his stance.

Later, about an hour into his practice with one of his clans fire style jutsus, the man deigned to speak. He'd stood there in the clearing reading some book titled _Icha Icha Paradise_ that Sasuke had actually kind of forgot he was there.

"Make sure you keep an eye on her, kid. There's a bunch of them watching closely, not all of them are good."

* * *

 **目は口ほどに物を言う**

* * *

Yuri had grown up in a society where words such as, "I love you," and "You mean everything to me," were said rarely.

Not that people didn't express their love, it was just that growing up she'd realized there were different ways people of different cultures did so. In her country, people often rather than say "I love you," would showed love through action. Things like cleaning and cooking, or even simply asking after someones health. From Hiyori's memories, she could safely say the Uchiha clan had been greatly similar in that regard.

But Yuri was also familiar in the way her American family treated one another. She knew this couldn't be said for all foreign families, but the one she'd seen from the outside looking in . . . well they would often speak such words of ardor she'd wondered if it cheapened them. At the time she'd felt solid in that such words should be kept close to the heart, locked in a way behind a gate.

She'd come to realize by the simple act of her loving Sasuke that she could see the appeal of being open, even in public, how much she adored her cousin.

It was such a lonely thought, being forced to hold such happy, warm feelings inside, that she couldn't do it. There was such a freedom in knowing that.

Yuri sighed, feeling a tightness in her body release. The air in her small kitchen smelled so yummy she was salivating at the idea of eating Italian after so long. Japanese food, while tasty, could get boring when it was all you ate.

She heard the front door open and grinned.

Sasuke really hadn't like the idea of Kakashi staying for dinner. It was what she'd expected since he was so against people in the first place, but it made her a bit sad. In time, she hoped Sasuke would allow others in to see him in a way she never had before.

She wanted to save him from doing something she'd regretted. Like refusing others and acting on his strength alone.

"It smells amazing in here," she heard Kakashi say as he strutted in. She looked back at her ward setting up the table for two and wondered what their time together had been like. She'd ask during dinner for sure.

"Thank you," she replied and placed a bento box in his hands. It was his share of the meal. "For earlier and keeping me company."

He blinked, looked down at the box and when he looked up his eyes smiled.

"Of course," Kakashi said. "Take care of yourself, Uchiha-san. And thanks for the meal."

She blinked when he became a pile of leaves. Then she looked at her floors that she'd just swept not too long ago, and frowned.

"I'll get that after dinner," Sasuke said from behind her. She turned and smiled at the kid. He just got cuter every day, but maybe that was her bias talking.

"Okay, Okay," Yuri said and let him lead her to her chair.

"This looks really good," Sasuke said after he sat down. "What made you think of this?"

She smiled at him fondly, "Your love for tomatoes."

She couldn't very well say she hadn't made it up herself. That the idea for it came from an entirely different world.

"So what did you and Kakashi get up to while you both waited, huh?"

Sasuke sighed, as if he'd been expecting this. "Nothing really. He stood there reading this book while I practiced. Hey, when do you think I'll activate my sharingan?"

That sounded like Kakashi. "Hm. Your sharingan? Probably not until your a genin." Canonically speaking.

Sasuke didn't appear to like that. Yuri had heard Itachi had unlocked his quite young, same for most of their clan geniuses. Of course it really wouldn't matter much, Sasuke had it in him to kill an actual god, so she wasn't too worried about him not being strong. She just didn't want his strength to become tainted by years of loneliness and hate.

"Not all great Uchiha members unlocked theirs early, Sasuke."

"Oh yah? Name one?"

"Both of your parents were very strong, you know? And Mikoto-sama didn't unlock hers until she was fourteen. Fugaku-sama was a bit earlier, his was when he was ten. But you don't need to worry about that for now. Be a kid while you can still be kid."

Sasuke sulked. "I don't want to be a kid."

"Kids say stuff like that," Yuri replied slyly, then waved at his plate. "Now eat up, it's getting cold."

Sasuke did as asked, although he rolled his eyes before he brought his chopsticks to his lips and his annoyed expression slipped from him like a drop of water.

"Yori! This is so good! You really outdid yourself."

Yuri smiled, and decided that she really had at the first bite. Sasuke's eyes seemed to sparkle, and for some reason—she blamed it on pregnancy—she felt tears burn at her eyes. He was just too damn cute! With his chubby cheeks! And his tufted black hair! This, she decided, was magic. Sasuke's gap moe.

Ah, bliss.

* * *

目は口ほどに物を言う — ｍe wa kuchi hodo ni mono wo iu — lit. Eyes tell stories as much as the mouth. This proverb basically means similarly to the expression of the English proverb "eyes being the windows to the soul", but also that love needs no words. You don't need to speak such words to be clear as long as it can be seen at a glance. c:

Which is how I feel for YOU ALL. Damn y'all can make a girl feel good. LOOK INTO MY EYES, SEE MY GRATITUDE AND LOVE. (even if it is simply written) Thanks again for such awesome reviews, and I hope you liked this chapter!


	10. Those Who Endure

_She hadn't always loved him._

 _In fact he'd been a great vexation to her for years before he grew up enough to impress her. Of course her respective immediate family and his—though really, they were in the same clan, so did it matter?—had been telling her he'd wise up one day. She hadn't held her breath, always upset when the man who'd been a boy training to be a ninja had teased her relentlessly._

 _She'd always thought he'd hated her._

 _She couldn't have been further from the truth._

 _Besides, she'd always imagine that she'd end up with some civilian like her. She knew she was of the gentle sort, hated bloodshed and violence really. It was a visceral fear of it that usually kept her at bay from most of her clan. That and she hadn't wanted to marry a cousin, even if it was to preserve their "golden" bloodline. Luckily, Tomoharu had been quite far removed from her family line when she'd finally taken a liking to him, if one could believe with them sharing the fanned emblem at their backs._

 _Hiyori stuck out her tongue at the shinobi. He had the gall to bark at her in laughter._

" _Haru," she warned softly, but he simply kept laughing. "Are you sure you're not an Inuzuka? You sure sound like one."_

 _He howled with laughter, and for a moment she forgot what she was so annoyed about as she took in his happy, glowing face. She could never be mad at him long, not that she was going to anyways. She'd always been too easy on him._

" _I love you," he finally breathed out when air came back to him. And then he kissed her._

 _He'd been kissing her for quite some time, but this one felt supremely different from their usual slow, casual ones. Those had been innocent because for all that they'd been dating since she was fifteen, they hadn't done much. She'd been worried that she was maybe too young to know if he was the right man for her, knew that if she let him take her farther, they'd have to answer to the clan head._

 _But this kiss was burning. As if all the passion of the glowing candle their innocent relationship had been was swept into an inferno that quickened her pulse and made her release a sound she hadn't realized she could make._

 _She panted against him when he released her lips to suckle at that pulse, listening to him breath over her while pressing soft, soft kisses at her throat. It was heart wrenchingly gentle._

" _H-ha—ru!" she cried out, an unknown fear rising inside of her chest. She wedged her arms against his chest and tried pushing him back. When he didn't, she pinched his neck with her fingers as hard as she could._

 _He jumped, scalded from her in surprise. For a moment he looked flushed, prepared to go at her again, but one look at her and he knew he'd have to stave whatever_ that _was._

" _Ah," he began shortly, a blush reddening his cheeks._

 _He looked at the floor, anywhere but at her. It honestly made it worse. He looked embarrassed for a moment as silence reigned and she tried to catch her shaking breath. But in those scant moments, he seemed to come to a great decision._

" _I can't say I'm sorry," he said at once. "I love you very much, and I want to show you_ how _much. Sometimes it's all I can do just to keep my hands off you, Yori."_

 _Hiyori pressed her lips together, uncertain but meeting his eyes to see a well of sincerity in them. And something she'd been noticing since months ago, that light that had drawn her to him, a moth to a flame._

 _Except he wasn't just a flame, was he?_

 _She couldn't pretend not to take his meaning._

 _She drew closer to him, a bird flying towards the sun—or perhaps a cloud was more suited to her. Wasn't her name the meaning of fine weather? Clear skies? A breeze that waited to see where it would go. Well, Hiyori knew where she wanted to go. She was terrified, but she knew where it was her breeze would take her. To a perfect spring day, her dearest and her most cherished person._

 _It was always him, after all._

 _She stood on her tiptoes, needing to grab at his jounin jacket to bring him closer to her he was so tall. He came willingly, their lips brushing softly before he tenderly brought her closer._

" _I'm not sure if_ I _quite love you after all your teasing earlier," she joked lightly, pulling her face from his. "But you can try filling me with yours."_

 _It was as blatant as she could be. He hadn't been needed to be told twice._

* * *

 **ならぬ堪忍するが堪忍**

* * *

Yuri woke up crying, reaching for someone knowing they weren't there—would _never_ be there. Sobs that wracked and heaved in her chest and refused to calm until minutes had passed and she could think beyond clouds of memory.

It honestly felt a little like dying inside all over when she was grieving a man she hadn't personally ever met. The strangest thing was that she had been happy to receive those tender memories as unwelcome as they'd been in the past. For reasons she couldn't fathom, it was healing in a way. To know someone could touch another so . . . tenderly and there not to be any lasting pain. No feelings of revulsion, no bruising or lasting scars that reminded her all to well what it was to be a doll with nothing to hold onto.

She hadn't been aware a person could possibly hurt in such an exquisite bliss, to know love as pure and innocent as Hiyori and Tomoharu had. It would have made her sick, but she was just too glad it existed in the first place!

It wasn't like this was the first time for her seeing the memory or being aware of what had once been, but it was certainly the first time she'd been receptive to feeling more light hearted about it.

She no longer felt like a voyeur. She hoarded those precious moments of recall as the gems they were. Probably because they were the sole moments she'd ever felt as loved or as warm in her entire life aside from simple moments with Sasuke. They were the most tenderest moments she would likely ever receive if she couldn't get over her hatred—no, _fear—_ of men.

Suddenly Yuri recalled what Hiyori had told Tomoharu at the end of their first coupling, after he'd begged her to tell him if she'd hurt or not. She couldn't help the chuckling it caused her even as tears dripped down her cheeks and onto her comforter.

" _Honestly, you were so gentle I thought_ you'd _break."_ It had been a non answer and he'd known. Truth was it was aggravatingly painful at first. But Hiyori had thought it was worth it just to see his face at the end. It'd been hilarious and endearing.

And Yuri, the parts belonging purely to the girl whose body she possessed now and even parts of _herself_ , mourned for him. Mourned while wondering at the same time if she could possibly live without his love inside of her now even as the thought also repulsed her.

She shook herself of the thought, looking to the clock for the time. She had time yet before she was due at the doctors. Sadly she wouldn't be picking up Sasuke today as she'd be out because of it. It would be the first in a while where she didn't pick him up. At least she'd got to walk him there this morning.

Despite her nap not helping her mood, she knew she had to get out of bed for her check-up so she showered and tried to pick at a quick late lunch before departing from her apartment building.

She didn't know how people did it—being pregnant. Of course, she had to, but still. Her feet were aching and swollen; she could press her fingers into her ankles and see an indention in the skin when it came way, and it would take a minute for it to go back to normal. Her joints ached as well, and her lower back and shoulders were getting a work out daily since she'd never had to carry so much weight on her shoulders—not with her breasts swelling right along with her stomach.

It was worth it though. Always so worth it, if only to feel the kick inside telling her to keep going.

She breathed in the fresh air while making her way, already knowing her feet would be killing her by the time she made it back home in time to see Sasuke. This is why she made it a point to make it a leisurely stroll where she watched the day pass and wave to those making their way through the village as well.

It'd been roughly four months, nearly five months she'd been here and once that thought hit her, her somber mood surprisingly lifted. She didn't feel the need to berate herself when she was working so hard to improve herself, and the pep in herself told her that she might be even just _slightly_ —okay, enormously proud of herself.

She'd certainly come a long way from a suicidal teenager with way too much drama on her hands. Now she was steadily becoming an adult with two kids on them.

How the oddest things happened.

Yuri felt a chill reach into her insides and she thought it was because she still had issues thinking on the day she died, despite what she told herself. Her heart beat faster though, refusing to listen her attempts at calming herself. Instead she quickened her pace in the streets, wondering why the heat of the tail end of spring wasn't warm enough for her. Idle thought ran through her head.

She slapped at a sharp sting to her arm, breathing heavy and wondering if she was just having a panic attack. They were familiar to her, but it'd been awhile. She didn't want to have one in the streets if she could help it, so with as much control as she could muster over herself, she looked for a place she could hide and calm herself.

She caught the sight of a dog then, a dog wearing a suspicious T-shirt that looked exceedingly familiar.

Sadly, she wasn't able to make heads or tails of it before she lost consciousness.

* * *

 **ならぬ堪忍するが堪忍**

* * *

"Boss!"

Kakashi looked up from the book he was reading, his expression bored before he saw Urushi pop in a cloud right in front of him. He should have known something was up since he'd assigned this particular ninken to watch his charge today, but his mind had been elsewhere while he'd taken himself a brake.

"Yes?"

"Danger! Danger! Hiyori collapsed, was taken by enemy shinobi!"

Kakashi stiffened, his body hardening and the relaxed stupor he'd found himself in slipping. It didn't take him long to ready his things or himself for likely battle.

"Do you still have her scent?"

"Yeah, yours was still on her, too. There were about three unknown signatures in the vicinity, but only one came to pick her up. We have to hurry! She fell! The pup inside could be hurt!"

It was all that needed to be said.

* * *

 **な** **らぬ堪忍するが堪忍**

* * *

Sasuke felt he was a bit ahead of the curve of classmates so he couldn't be sure, but he was near certain that obnoxious Naruto was trying to one up him. He scoffed. Like that would happen.

"Sasuke-teme! Just you wait! Next time I'll get you for sure." Naruto hissed from the ground, his aquamarine gaze alight with anger.

"Whatever you say, dobe." It was very unlikely that the blond menace could _ever_ surpass him. Sasuke was already the best in class, and he'd prove himself by _always_ being the best.

He only remembered Hiyori's plea for him to make friends after he'd beaten the idiot to a pulp, and so looked around at his classmates for any potential ones that his cousin might like. Then he frowned. He didn't want any friends, but if ever he chose to have one, he realized they should be someone he might like instead.

Didn't matter, once his gaze swept over his classmates, the girls started making enough noise to damage his hearing, and the guys were all busy glaring at him. There was no one worth knowing here.

Before the . . . before, some of them he had spoken to and had a bit of rapport with. He used to joke and play around, too. It was a surprisingly pinching feeling in his chest that made him realize he might actually miss it. Not that he'd ever admit that to anyone, even Hiyori, and certainly not that he'd try to make nice with any of these kids.

At first when he came back from his mourning period, they'd either did one or two things. Crowded him until he was sick with hate for people, or sit as far from him as possible as if death of loved ones was contagious.

His thoughts on the matter? Death was a disease everyone had.

Of course, Hiyori would hate that he thought that way but it didn't make it any less true. He'd almost hated having been born in the first place, knowing he'd have to pass one day, too. That it was the one thing guaranteed in life, and that it was an irony. If he hadn't had existed in the first place, he'd never had to have experienced all this bullshit. It was probably the knowing that made it worse. Knowing he wasn't alone in these fears, that Hiyori who had an even scarier brush with her mortality most likely felt the same in some ways.

He was all too aware that that no matter what he did Hiyori would die some day. Even if she made it to a ripe old age, she'd die. Knew the baby growing inside of her now that hadn't even greeted the world yet would one day cease to exist as well.

It didn't stop his chest from welling with that light, tentative happy feeling he got when he thought of his cousin and the baby. The part of him that had been an optimist reared its head—perhaps it was those tentative feelings that was the gift of life, rather than the certainty of its eventual end.

It was while he was heading back into the classroom for more theory based work inside that he saw a small girl with peculiar eyes hanging back, a sad expression on her face. She was watching after someone, her lavender eyes tell tale. He'd nearly forgotten there was a Hyuuga in his class. He traced her gaze to a particular blond head of hair.

Sasuke scowled. There really was no one suitable.

* * *

 **ならぬ堪忍するが堪忍**

* * *

Yuri woke for the third time that day, or in hopefully the same day. Her head was filled with fog as she struggled to recall what she'd been thinking of moments before. Subconsciously, her hand moved to go to her stomach—it never made it there.

There was a sinking feeling in her gut then as she blinked to clear the fog only to realize she wanted out of her head, out this _body_ the moment her eyes met only darkness. She panicked, tried to breath, but the fabric over head kept the oxygen at a bare minimum, and—and then her heart settled and her breathing evened out. She idly recognized this as the sort of trance she'd go into when bad things happened to her.

Right then, she was simply a spector inside her own head, thinking about inane things such as what meal she should prepare for Sasuke and how cute he looked while eating spaghetti. Her adorable kid acting hot and cold with her while they laid in bed in the early morning. His hand running along her stomach with the strangest expression on his face telling her that while he found a baby inside of her odd, he was happy.

But thoughts of her child, currently inside of her and at real risk threatened to break that calm.

She'd done this before, she couldn't freak out now after all this time. She had to think, not react immediately. Had to keep herself aware.

Then, for a horrifying moment she feared she was back in her old body. That it'd all been some bittersweet dream of a place to heal, and to trick herself into thinking she _wasn't in hell_. Because how could something so wonderful exist for someone like her? How could she be even more messed up? Dreaming of killing herself for a freedom she'd never rightly have.

It was a thought that made her feel empty. She'd never known what it was like after all—to be filled up with love.

"She's awake," came a voice somewhere distant, but too close for comfort. She wondered if she'd ever heard it before, but couldn't place it. If she was Yuri again then it was a possibility this man was new.

Light blinked into her eyes and fresh air came to her the moment someone ripped whatever cloth it was from her head. She focused her vision, blinking heavily, struggling for calm while she took in details minutely.

Her stomach dropped, tears peppered at her eyelids. She knew at least one of these people, and it was a terrifying realization where she was.

"Who fathered your child?" Kabuto asked her, and she had to bite on her tongue not say something stupid.

Someone in the back chuckled. "It was probably that Itachi brat, got one in when he was trying to kill her."

Another laughed, "Who could blame him? I'd take a little extra time with her, too."

Yuri chilled, looked everywhere but at the leering men with otogakure hitai-ate, and found that she was as she expected. Trapped to some sort of examination table, wrists and ankles locked beneath metal bands that didn't look too easy to break.

"Do yourselves a favor, and get out," Kabuto hissed. She hated that she was grateful when they listened to him. Then he turned back to her. "Is what they said true?"

She bit her lip, looked away and thought of Tomoharu. Kabuto reached for her chin and forced her to look at him. Where he touched, goosebumps formed.

"Answer me, Hiyori-chan." The familiar tone he used wasn't doing him favors if he thought he was disarming her. Did he think he could play good cop to any advantage aside from terrifying her?

She didn't want to tell him the truth though. _No one_ knew who the father was, not specifically besides Sasuke who had known him. Her doctor simply knew he'd died in the massacre and everyone else just figured it was some Uchiha. Her clan wasn't known for marrying outsider's after all. They were all uncomfortably related somehow.

"N-not . . ." Gods she hated how _weak_ she sounded. How weak she _was._ She finished, "telling."

Kabuto pursed his lips, displeased.

"I have to know if I should terminate your fetus just yet, Hiyori-chan. If it's father is another Uchiha, we'll let you carry to term." As if he was giving her a gift. Hah.

Yuri chuckled, the situation getting to her in a strange way. She didn't know what gave her the gall to say, "Any child of mine will be an Uchiha, you know this. Why kill one that's already planted? You'll be using me the same way won't you? For my clans eyes." She laughed. "Sounds to me you'll do whatever you want, you just want to know if my child will be all the more likely to inherit the sharingan."

"Well," Kabuto said sweetly. He ran his fingers against her cheek. "I suppose you have this all figured out."

"Only the most obvious things. But I can guess the rest." And she could. Kabuto was Orochimaru's little pawn who did as he said, which included human experimentation, which she wouldn't put it past their lot to try on her child or if they had plans for her to have a whole brood, children. They could desire messing with her clan's sharingan itself.

Yuri, pumped with that strange lack of caring, didn't even flinch when he slapped her. It didn't even hurt that much.

"Did you make a little mistake with an outsider? Is that why you're keeping quiet?"

She snorted, giving too much away in her expression.

"Ah so it was an Uchiha. That's all I wanted to know, Hiyori-chan." He stroked her cheek again.

Perhaps she recognized the futility in fighting so she didn't even react. Kabuto left after a while of him muttering things to her about the health of her child, and though she hadn't thought he was the type to do it, he hummed while working with a bit of machinery. She was alone in the dark when he turned off the lights, telling her to get some sleep. Impossible for her, really.

But then for some reason she recalled the dog in that familiar T-shirt right before she passed out. Now that she had time to ruminate, she realized with an excited jolt that it was one of Kakashi's ninken. _Ahah!_ she thought. _That's why he was touching me so much yesterday, the scent for his ninken to follow!_ She hoped it wasn't a crazy thought and that she was grasping at straws.

If it meant Kakashi was on his way, hopefully using all his shinobi prowess to locate her, she'd let him touch her all over. At the queasy feeling that thought gave her, she scratched the all over part and thought maybe just enough for his smell to apply to her anytime. Gods, she prayed he'd find her but she didn't have real faith. Orochimaru had really well hidden labs all over the place.

Hating she was a damsel in distress, but aware that's exactly what she was, she hoped for Kakashi's swift rescue.

* * *

 **ならぬ堪忍するが堪忍**

* * *

Itachi was annoyed at the presence that kept bugging him.

"I have someone," the non-entity Itachi refused to acknowledge said. "Someone from your precious clan."

He stiffened, thoughts of his little brother running through his mind as real fear permeated into his thoughts. He was the only one Orochimaru could have, the rest were all dead.

"I see this affects you, Itachi. Maybe you should have listened when I asked you for that alliance, yes?"

Itachi looked at the snake of a man, his jaws clenching and his fists balling themselves into stones at his side.

"Care to rethink your decision? I could be inclined to release them for a price."

Itachi, who had grown used to the way people priced lives, looked at Orochimaru and wondered if the man was a swindler or a merchant. Then he remembered those two things were the same and realized he was going to have to play into another's hand if he wanted to ascertain the truth of the matter.

* * *

ならぬ堪忍するが堪忍 — naranu kannin suru ga kannin — to endure what cannot be endured is true endurance (i.e.: bearing what is unbearable is true forbearance)

So sorry for not updating in a while, my desktop died and so I've had to write on a tablet, which isn't fun in the least and slow going, but here! Actual plot! I've been in a weird existential crisis mood lately, so forgive the morose tone. Thanks again so much for all those who reviewed the last chapter! Y'all be so kind to me D; Really keeps me going when I think I can't.


	11. Hate the Sin

Itachi was seeing a ghost.

He had to be for her to _be_ there. Alive. Breathing, sleeping, but still very much alive.

He knew she should be dead because killing Hiyori had been the—it'd been shaking hands, a racing heart, and burgeoning guilt and—and _horror_. Not because he'd ever specifically cared for _her_ at all, but because she'd been the first. The first in a long slew of bodies that died by his hand that night.

It had not been as gentle for her as it had been for everyone else.

When he'd still been mounting his courage to start and complete his mission the nerves were quite potent and still his hands had been shaking, and his head had been trying to wrap around his _own_ decision—a decision that hadn't felt real until that moment and—and he'd caught her by surprise so when she'd turned towards him from watering her houses flowers, his strike had been off.

It'd never been off before.

He'd been aiming for her throat but instead he'd plunged his blade into her chest when she'd moved and had ran the length of the blade around her side.

She should be dead.

He'd opened her like a present.

He'd held her to her end.

He'd closed her stricken eyes to her last breath, her last heartbeat. Killing the rest had taken all night, so how was she here?

The real answer was that she couldn't be.

"So, Itachi, care to bargain?"

"How did you make it so convincing?" he asked.

Orochimaru blinked from where they observed the sleeping girl in a room outside of hers through a glass window.

"Oh, did you not know? Little Hiyori was a miracle. Dead for hours but brought back by morning. It's quite perplexing, really. No one knew how she did it. I intend to find out."

No they hadn't told him. Jiraiya, the only man he spoke to with ties in Konoha must have either lied to him through omission or _he_ hadn't know either. Itachi wouldn't be surprised if they'd tried to keep her surviving a secret. Not that he believed Orochimaru for a second.

"I want to talk to her."

Orochimaru thought for a moment and then nodded his head. "For a few minutes if you can wake her up."

He walked him out of their observation room and led him to the door beside it.

Once they opened the door, Not-Hiyori squirmed, her body unable to move much being strapped so tightly to the metal table she laid on. She was still sleeping when Itachi approached her. It was then he noticed the large protrusion of her stomach. It did not look like fat. He prayed it wasn't what he thought it was. He had no idea how long she'd been here if that was the case.

"I see you've noticed she's pregnant. Not to worry, it wasn't one of ours. It was one of yours. She was probably expecting when you cut her down."

If so she wasn't the only pregnant woman he'd killed that day. Attempted in her case. No, he'd succeeded. She _had_ been dead. Then how was she here? And not just here but _here_? Had no one thought to protect the sole female Uchiha or had Orochimaru seen a chance and he'd taken it? She was _priceless_.

"I want privacy," he murmured. Orochimaru chuckled but left all the same. Probably to observe. He could probably listen in as well.

Itachi shook her gently, waiting for her to wake up and show that she wasn't real but some puppet Orochimaru was trying to use to get him to cooperate with whatever messed up plans he had for him.

She did, blinking her wide eyes open, reminding him of how he'd shut them months ago. And then his own widened. There was no mistake, this was her. No one else could have those eyes, blood red with three tomoe locked there in flecks. How she had a fully matured sharingan he had no clue, but it was a testament to her that she possessed them nonetheless. He supposed the amount of trauma she'd recently gone through had a hand in it. A hand he'd played in.

She blinked again, several times, disoriented before she focused on him and her eyes went back to onyx black.

"I-Itachi?" her voice quivered and then she muttered, "A nightmare . . . this has to be a nightmare."

He was sure to her it was. He didn't know what to say, Itachi never knew what to say. What did one say to a person they killed? A family member. Someone he cared for if even slightly.

He simply knew that now he had to plan on what exactly he was going to do. He was in a precarious situation as it was with the Akatsuki and his village. He knew he had to break her out some way. It would save everyone a lot of trouble if he just did away with Orochimaru, but he wasn't sure if he was powerful enough in his own right to take on the snake sannin.

Hiyori focused on him again, her eyes taking him in, the dark robes he now wore and the red clouds along them, his hitai-ate which was struck by his own kunai. Her lips parted, and her brows furrowed, blinking again to hold back whatever tears there. Hiyori had always been the most expressive of his clan. Her and her fiancé Tomoharu. He supposed that's whose child she was carrying.

Her face shifted then as she gained a sense of calm. Uncomfortably, she laughed under his stare. "This is awkward, isn't it?" It was.

"I'm sorry," he choked on a whisper. Her face crumpled as if under a heavy weight.

"You know why I can't forgive y-you," her voice broke. "I-I love you very much, Itachi. Even now. But what you did was unforgivable. E-even if you had a reason for doing it."

"Do you know them? My reasons?" He asked, not because he wanted to be absolved of his sins as if he had the right, but to see if she had any idea what had led up to her temporary demise.

He could see her debating with herself what to say. When it came her voice was caustic.

"You mean did they tell me why you went insane and killed us all? No. They're keeping that little gem to themselves, though I have _every right to know._ Still, I can infer why you thought you had to. Our clan was getting ready to initiate a strike against Konoha, your loyalty was first to the village rather than to us, so you were approached right? Told you to prove yourself. Prove that you loved our village more than our clan. Well you assisted a monster, cousin. Job well done!"

Her eyes beaded with tears that slid off her face and into her black hair that fanned around her head. She looked upwards, away from him and to the ceiling.

"Did it—did it not occur to you that the Uchiha clan was just as much apart of the village as anyone in Konoha? That above what duty led you to expunge us, you had one to us as well to seek a _better_ resolution?" She searched his face, but it was a blank canvas. "No? That's right. Itachi the Tool can't think for himself and always follows orders."

She slumped on the table, a resigned drop of her shoulders. Her eyes closed as she exhaled a long sigh, trying for patience. He said nothing. There was a tense silence before she spoke again.

"I'm pretty sure he took our _eyes_ Itachi. Our families _eyes,"_ her voice was a whisper of what it was. Her gaze focused on him once more and she jerked her head for him to lean in. He did so, unsure. Then she whispered, "Y-you'll know if he hides his right arm in his clothes and in bandages around his face. Shimura Danzo will have taken them to implant them into himself."

Itachi blinked, the first visible sign he gave that any of this affected him and he hadn't meant to. He pulled back.

He'd always thought Hiyori had been the perfect civilian, peaceful without a bloodthirsty bone in her body. Unaware of what the world was really like, kept naive and innocent because of it. She had been lucky not to have been born a boy. The clan heads hadn't pushed her that hard to become a shinobi like they would have if she had. It was surprising that she was this up to date; she hadn't seemed to pay much attention to anything but books, painting and family back then. But now she appeared to be aware of so much . . . and if what she said was true . . .

"You're probably wondering how I know, how I'm so sure," Hiyori mumbled. "I'm sure someone's listening to our conversation, but it doesn't matter really. They can't do much with the information." She paused. "But _you_ can."

"I'm a missing-nin, what do you think I could do?"

She snorted again. "Listen, Itachi. You and I both know the truth. I'm not about to tell your secrets here while I'm strapped to this table and currently in a very delicate situation but I do know them believe it or not."

"And how would you know?"

For a second she didn't respond. She had a stricken look on her face for a moment that held a well of thoughts that passed behind her dark eyes. And then she softly said, "I can show you. My memories."

Their eyes met, hers whirled into red and his to match.

An then he lived—two, _two_ lives in a span of a second.

* * *

 **罪を憎み、罪人を愛する**

* * *

Kakashi wasn't sure if he was at a dead end, or if she was located underground and that's why her trail kept ending here. He was betting on the latter because they'd already circled the whole area at least five times and the trail always led him to the same spot. As if she hadn't left this area. He, his dogs, and teammates all stood around the bit of ground there, the same thought echoing in all their heads.

Was she buried there?

Dead? She could be. It'd been nearly twenty-four hours since she'd been snatched.

"It always leads here," he said softly. Then he looked to his dogs, "Dig."

The rest of them prepared themselves for what they'd see, and he noticed Boar making hand signs for rock techniques to help the dogs. It wasn't what he was expecting. The packed earth gave way and sprinkled sand into a hollow hole in the ground, opening to reveal a set of stairs that spiraled down.

"It's a hiding place," Fox said tersely, shifting from side to side in aggravation.

Fox seemed to be taking their charges abduction the worst. He wondered if she liked the woman or was worried about her career. It was safe to say they were all worried about the latter to be honest. None more so than him who'd technically yet to fail a mission yet—even if it ended in loss of life.

The fact that Hiyori had been taken under his watch was unacceptable. Had he really been so short sighted not to see this happening? Marking her with his scent and getting hers on him had been a cautionary act, not one he'd thought would be necessary. He'd done it so his dogs could watch her in his place while he took more missions. He breathed a short breath in. Gai was right, he really did think nothing but of work. Real work. Watching Hiyori had been nothing short of boring, an unwanted vacation.

Things were different now.

He just hoped Hiyori didn't have to pay for his lack of vigilance. It was very possible she did still live, same for her child. Who would kidnap the sole Uchiha female and simply kill them? No, what would happen to her might actually be worse.

They all took the stairs down, Kakashi going first along with his ninken. He flicked his hitai-ate from his closed eye and waited for half of the world to shift vision. Using the sharingan was always a trip, he had to be careful. He closed his eye, practice making it easy so it didn't drain him of his chakra.

"Fox, any reads on life?"

"Several signatures, so far none of them feel like our girl."

"Let me know when that changes."

"Yes, Taichou."

The musk of the earth made it harder to smell, but easier in a way without the winds drafting certain notes in the air away. He smelt blood, that was for sure, but there were other accents as well. Rust, mildew, and a sweltering heat. How anybody could stand to be down here for long boggled his mind. He supposed when one wanted a super hidden lab though, they had to make do with what was easy to hide in.

People really didn't pay attention to the ground enough.

When his eye adjusted to the lack of lighting, he could see that everything was kept in a perfect square column, and the farther they went the more light there was from torches burning along the walls.

They went slow, careful, but he could still hear how wild Fox's heart was beating. He wondered why this affected her so much. It wasn't like any of them had real ties to the remaining Uchiha clan, but then they had been watching the remainder of them for months now. Perhaps she'd grown attached.

"Incoming," Fox whispered.

They flushed against the walls before they all heard someone laugh several meters ahead. It was a group of men, their jeers and conversation making its way to their ears.

"Think when she pops that kid out, we'll get a turn with her?"

"Maybe, you know they'll be wanting shinobi kids from her."

"A cute girl like that. It'd be hard to keep my hands off—"

His team converged, silencing the rest of their disturbing speech. It wasn't entirely an accident when he slipped his kunai along one of their throats, listening to a man's last gasping breath. He pretended not to notice when he heard the squelching of blood from where Fox got her hands on one of them or the quick snap where Boar was concerned. It had been quick, that's all he wanted.

"So, we know she's here and alive," Fox stated the obvious. Boar grunted.

Kakashi sighed. Maybe they should have kept one of them alive so they could question them. But he wasn't without aid.

"Uhei," he said but was acknowledging them all. The dog nodded his bandaged head in assent. The rest followed his example as they split up into differing tunnel systems. It was about fifteen minutes later of them wandering around when Shiba popped up into a small cloud.

"Boss, I found her."

"Take us then!" Fox hissed.

They trailed after the dog, Kakashi pulling on his leads to his ninken to come back.

"Itachi was there, too! And Orochimaru!" Shiba said as they made their way.

His pulse jolted at the knowledge. Itachi? And Orochimaru? This was worse than he'd thought.

When several of his dogs trailed after him he called to Pakkun, "Get a message to the village, we may need back up."

* * *

 **罪を憎み、罪人を愛する**

* * *

"In the wild, remember that water is far more important than food. Sixty percent of the human body is made of water, and so—oh, hello. Is there anything I can help you with?" Iruka-sensei said, turning towards two anbu members dropping in unannounced.

"We'll be taking Uchiha Sasuke in for a time being," one with a monkey mask said.

Iruka paused, glanced at Sasuke with a frown and nodded.

Sasuke looked at the anbu with a sick feeling rising in his stomach. He remembered the last time he'd seen the masks, the last time he'd been pulled aside and—this had nothing to do with Hiyori. It couldn't. She was safe. In the village. People were watching her . . . . Except he very well knew how that worked out for some.

He stalked after the masked shinobi, his face a mask as well. They left the classroom before one with the face of a pig drew him to the side.

"We'll be taking you to a high security point where you'll be guarded by nothing but the best. You have nothing to fear."

"What for? What the hell is happening?" he asked darkly, barely resisting the urge to glare the man.

"If everything goes to plan, this will be nothing but a scare," Pig said, not answering him.

"Oh for the love of—you know, he has every right to know what's happening," Monkey chastised.

"Not our call."

"Who gives a shit," Monkey eloquently responded, turning to Sasuke. "I'm sorry to say, but the people who were in charge of watching after your—"

"Monkey, _it's not our call._ If the boy needs to know before had, let the Hokage take care of it."

But Sasuke already heard enough. Something had happened to his—his cousin. Both of them. The—

"Is it the baby?" he asked suddenly, feeling everything drain out of him at once. "Is Hiyori going to be okay?"

Pig sighed, Monkey groaned and addressed the increasingly panicked seven year old. "We don't know anything yet."

* * *

 **罪を憎み、罪人を愛する**

* * *

Yuri cringed when her vision came back from this strange hyperawareness. Like everything was crisp and sharp, and yet slow and unwelcomingly fast at once. It was a bit like the dilation of her iris adjusting to harsh light and she had to wonder if that's what genjutsu—or just the particular Uchiha sharingan—felt like to be under.

But the moment for pondering left when she focused once more on Hiyori's murderer and cousin.

God, it'd been so strange seeing him with her own eyes. It still was. Hair darker than a raven's black, eyes the bloody color that was so iconic to their clan, skin a pale white. He looked ill. And of course she was aware that he was, and wouldn't see a healer any time soon.

Morbidly, she found she could see similarities in their facial structures after having grown accustomed to her new face. In fact, having a new face made it easier to pick apart what was the same and what was different between the two of them. They looked like they could be siblings, if she were honest. Same hair, eye shape, though her skin was a much more healthy shade of pale.

He was also strikingly young. A teenager like her. Who should've had so much more life to live.

She'd nearly forgotten what she'd asked of him when the red of his eyes went back to the voidless onyx he'd entered with.

"Who _are_ you?" his voice a dark rumble.

She looked away, she had to. She couldn't bear to see whether he found her as disgusting as she found herself—for her past, for having taken over someone's future. She was well aware _he_ had no right to pass judgements, but in all honestly, she wasn't entirely aware of how much he'd seen. Had he seen it all? Every terrible and wonderful thing? Was he aware of just how much she _loved_ his little brother? How much she was terrified of _everything_ because of it?

Of living for someone else. Of loving herself and being proud of what paltry things she'd accomplished. Of dying—truly ceasing to be. Not that would matter at all to him, but it did to her.

Was he angry, if he'd seen, that she was encouraging Sasuke to take a different path than what he wanted?

In her opinion, she had more rights to Sasuke and so it shouldn't matter, yet it did. Itachi and Obito had betrayed what blood they shared, and Hiyori, through whatever _miracle,_ was there and _hadn't_. _She_ had been there. _She_ had cared for him, fed him, and gave him love when there was no one else. She was nearly positive she would never be able to give it to anyone else besides her baby and Sasuke, even to herself.

In the short months of her time here, she'd latched onto him, a string to her kite, the string to her _balloon_. Maybe it had been unhealthy, maybe, maybe, _maybe_ —but Hiyori didn't care.

If she was to die today, this time she'd leave knowing it _would_ _not_ be by her choice. Because she would never be able to choose to leave him alone, and _that_ was love. _That_ was as selfless and as selfish as she could be. So she knew, without a doubt, whatever happened in this damned facility she would have to get through. Even if she was terrified of shadows for years on end, if she made it out, she'd be brave. She'd have to be brave.

And if Itachi didn't prove to be an ally like she thought he might, she'd just have to find other ways of getting out. Even if she had to debase herself even further.

She looked at Itachi, wondered how long they had left to talk before some random fucker would make their way in to break up their 'family reunion' and said, "Don't you know already? I'm Uchiha Hiyori."

Itachi's jaw clenched, the only sign of anything amiss. He opened his mouth to respond—

She cringed, unable to cup her ears in her hands when a sound she was certain was going to deafen her went out all around them. They shared alarmed glances before Itachi sort of zoned out. He was probably doing that weird chakra sensing thing people in the manga had done. How it worked, she had no clue, but he must have deemed them all clear. It was the only explanation why he found doing what he did next, a smart move. Hiyori was of a differing opinion—really, it was excessive and unwelcome.

Itachi didn't waste any time making hand signs for a fire jutsu, her eyes widening at the show of what she considered _magic_ , lighting up the dreary lab room with a bright, flickering glow. She didn't know what the hell he was doing until he brought the flames at his fingertips to the metal shackles that kept her tied to the flimsy excuse for a bed.

"This will hurt," he told her as she hissed and glared at him for all he was worth. The silver metal pooled quickly, turning molten and pink as her blood mixed with it. She tried to keep from crying, biting her lips to keep from screaming out.

"Don't you have literally _anything_ else to get them off?" she ground out.

"Hn," he replied when her hands were free but bleeding. He got to work on her ankles, which didn't help matters when she thrashed under the pain. She bucked several times, and felt her gorge rise several more before she finally passed out. Perhaps that had been the painful point of doing things that way.

* * *

 **罪を憎み、罪人を愛する**

* * *

Hiyori didn't come to until she was startled awake by explosions and some of the worst pain she'd ever experienced in her two lives.

Agony. Complete and utter _agony_.

And the world in chaos certainly didn't help matters much. She was in pain, everything was in pain. Her head felt like it would combust; every one of her muscles felt torn and abused—not to mention the stinging of her burns at her wrists and ankles. But the worst of it was in her stomach.

It set her heart racing, as she muttered, "Please, please, please," over and over again. Her head struggling to comprehend what was happening internally and externally.

 _This_ was the worst moment of her existence.

Not her sexual assaults, not killing herself, not anything to _do_ with herself.

 _This_ , knowing her child was in danger terrified her more than anything.

She grasped at her stomach, ignorant of the man who held her, and begged for something when she knew she couldn't have it. She'd been right when she assumed this world was hell for her. A limbo where those who committed self murder ended up, endlessly hoping and craving things that didn't belong to them. That wanted and wanted too greedily, who had been ungrateful for the hand they'd been dealt in life. A gift given before it was taken away.

"My _baby,"_ she cried. " _My baby._ "

She couldn't—she couldn't, couldn't, _couldn't._

She felt her world tip on its axis, a shift that had nothing to do with what havoc was going on in her head, but what was happening physically. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood before she could even try to concentrate on what was happening around her. Still, everything felt frozen and muffled, all aside from that internal pain. The pain that made it difficult to concentrate on _anything_.

And then—

"Breathe, Hiyori. _Breathe_ ," a familiar voice commanded her, somehow getting through. It wasn't—where was Itachi? She seized up in whoevers arms she was in until she looked up, a strange calm falling over her when she saw the mask.

"Dog," she whispered, thinking of Tomoharu before doubling over in the mans arms as sharper pain took over. She was certain she was going to pass out again.

"Fox, I _really_ need you!"

Stars danced across her eyes, white fuzz blinding her each time she tried to open them. A soft laugh left her as she groaned, it sounded like a sob.

The pain finally reminded her then before she was near certain she couldn't live through all of this: she was alive.

And then it all went black once more.

.

.

.

* * *

罪を憎み、罪人を愛する — tsumi o nikumi, tsumibito wo aisuru — hate the sin, love the sinner.

 _Sorrryyyy._


	12. From the Brink of Death

Once more, for what felt like the hundredth time she'd escaped true death, she woke. It wasn't very quickly, and at first she was terribly confused. Lost. She didn't have a real sense to what had happened and where she was, or really even _who_ she was.

It wasn't deja vu, though the feeling was familiar. She had the sense that this had happened before. But it was different. Her eyes burned like she hadn't slept in weeks, she felt clammy and her tongue was sticky against the dry roof of her mouth. Breathing came with difficulty and in quick pants that didn't help the nauseous feeling burgeoning in her stomach. Speaking of her stomach—

She bit her lip, clenching her eyes shut tight and doing her best to stave off the headache forming in the base of her temples. She didn't have much faith in her efforts as the rest of her head felt like fog, a white cloud hanging over her that made it hard for her to wade through it all, and really the pain helped center herself.

Breathe in, breathe out.

But when she finally understood the little messages of her body she at first ignored—the pain in her abdomen when she tried to shift position, the odd weightlessness on her hips and the bone weary exhaustion—she knew that when she opened her eyes, she would have to be strong enough to accept whatever what may come. Whatever reality it may be.

She half wanted to go back to sleep, if only so she could stay ignorant a while longer. The cowards way out.

(Dying the first time had been like tripping on rocks, it happened quickly and then it was over.)

(Living would never be easy in that way.)

(Death was the inevitability of life.)

(And rebirth, an afterthought.)

.

.

.

(No, no. It was a _miracle_.)

She squeezed her eyes shut tighter for a split second, feeling the burn of tears and the clench of her jaw. She knew that when she opened them next, she was going to be a different person, she was going to have to be. Whether it was the right way to cope, the right way to do _anything_ , Yuri knew that this day had to come for her to relinquish everything that had weighed her down previously. She was going to _accept_ it. All the good, all the bad.

Wasn't that what made life interesting?

She opened her eyes, blinking disorientation and the flood of fluorescent lighting away as best she could. The first thing she noticed was that she was in a hospital room, similar to the one she'd been in the last time she'd awaken from dying, or in this case, a near death experience. She didn't want to wonder too much on the situation at hand too quickly, so she took to eying the lemon pastel walls and the lack of window. It was stuffy and hot, though there was a fan trained on her that sent her dark hair whispering, and did as best as it could, all things considered. Summer in the Land of Fire was not a joke.

At least, she hoped she was still there. She could be in any number of places, perhaps even an entirely different dimension. Maybe this time she was in Bleach. Inwardly she chuckled, as dark as the humor felt to her.

Too tired to sit up, she craned her head around the room and saw it was empty of people save for a dog that rested at the foot of her bed. She was too afraid to look in the direction of her stomach so she focused entirely on the animal, a pug that she recognized immediately.

Sensing something amiss, Pakkun lifted his face tucked into his front paws and glanced at her. When their gazes met, his lips turned up in a strange doggy-smile she would have found cute if not for her general mood—which was quiet panic mixed with the morose tone of grief. She was near certain that something terrible had occurred.

"Uchiha-san," the dog greeted, causing her to blink a bit. She swallowed harshly, her throat dry. Another reminder this truly was a strange world. "Glad to see you're awake. I'll howl for the good doctor," and then he proceeded to do just that.

Almost at once a familiar face walked into the room, a harried expression on her usually serene face. She looked as if she hadn't slept, or like she'd just come out from a nap. Yuri would have felt bad for the woman if it weren't for her terrified yearning for answers, despite the part of her too afraid to hear them.

"Good evening," Katogaya Aeru said, a dazzling smile making its way across her face. "I am so glad you're up! Let's see," the woman bustled in and got to work checking her vitals and asking her questions on how she was feeling. After the initial check-up, they then got into business.

At first, Yuri was worried when the woman point blank ignored the subject of her child, neither of them noting the fact that she was clearly not pregnant anymore and that her chest was swollen and heavy. She thought—she really didn't want to fathom the thought that perhaps her child hadn't made it, but then Aeru had started answering those unanswered questions. She explained that they'd been able to perform an emergency c-section, delivered by Aeru herself, who whispered quietly that she'd been the medic on the initial take-back squad. It was a relief to know that by then she'd been in familiar hands.

The worry was making sure all parties survived, which apparently had been no easy task as Aeru informed her that she had to resuscitate Yuri after her heart had stopped beating, was clinically dead for close to thirty seconds, and at the same time make sure her children didn't die unable to breath or regulate their own heat for themselves.

Her chil—

Yuri didn't move, she wasn't even sure if her heart was still beating as the woman's words made their way into her ears and registered in her head past the glaringly painful headache and the dispersing fog around the rest of her senses. She'd been drinking water and she'd almost spit it out.

"T-two?" Yuri fought a smile, still too uncertain if she was living in another parallel universe, or if this was the same Naruto one she'd entered six months ago. Six months ago. _Six._ And Yuri had been a month along before she got here . . . could a baby even survive preterm pregnancy that early? But these had been twins, if Aeru was to be believed, which meant they were always going to be early.

Wait.

Twins.

 _Twins._

 _Twins!_

Aeru's face lit up even more, even as her voice took on a slightly stressed note, "Yes, two! I couldn't believe it. One of them was hiding behind his brother—a natural shinobi if I ever saw one."

"A boy? Two boys?"

The doctor got a good look at her face and paused. "I've gotten way ahead of myself."

She strode across the room and took a seat at her beside, much more casual than she'd ever been before. Pakkun took this moment to make himself comfortable, closing his eyes in rest though she had a hunch he was still very much listening.

"First of all, your children are fine so far. Sasuke is currently in the cafeteria getting dinner with his guards, and there is a whole host of ANBU within this facility in particular making sure you're all safe. The one responsible for the lack of security during the time you were taken has been reprimanded and punished."

Yuri frowned, having a sneaking suspicion it was a certain silver haired man who had let her slip by and her soft spot for him couldn't help but hope he hadn't been punished _too_ severely. But then she was reminded of what hell she'd been through recently and thought he might of gotten what he deserved. Depending on the punishment.

But none of that mattered. What did was her—holy crap, her _children._ And they were alive! And it was just them getting through the thick of the fog in her head. She felt her lips pull up in a grin, one that hurt from the bite wounds she'd left there and from the sheer stretch of it.

"May I—may I see them? Hold them?" She felt more than a little breathless.

Aeru looked a bit guilty as she replied, "Not yet, we have them isolated in a ward for preemies. They're doing quite well, all things considered. Both of them still need to develop their lungs a little, among other things. But we can discuss this more in depth later. I'm sorry to say but _you_ can't leave your bed for another two weeks yourself. You still have a fever, you've only just come out of a very long sleep, and it's too easy for them to sicken at this point. Once you're feeling better, I can take you by to see, but for now, please focus on yourself."

Her smile dimmed, "I can't see them for that long? Two weeks?" She moved to sit up, but found she was too exhausted to do even that much. That and her abdomen was killing her, which made her wonder what she'd find when she'd look. No doubt she had another scar.

Aeru lifted her palm and reached for hers, clasping their hands together and rubbing circles in the flesh above her thumb. "Two weeks at the least to hold them, but sooner to observe. The time will drag on and feel slow, but it's important for you to recover, Hiyori. You're a mother now, and that means looking after yourself so you can look after them."

Still, she felt guilty being so physically weak when she should be there to hold her children, feed them, and love them. She worried about being able to connect with them when they were outside of her, and struggled imagining _two_ of them, when she hadn't even had an idea of the gender of the _one_ she thought she'd had. Would she be able to love them equally? Would she be a good mother?

 _Could_ she even be a good mother?

* * *

 **起死回生**

* * *

"Unf!"

Yuri groaned under the added weight on her body and winced at the spike of pain. Sasuke clutched at her, unbeknownst, and within seconds she felt wetness at her chest that was assuredly not breast milk. Slowly, she untangled a hand to reach up to rub her hand into his dark tresses. His hair was soft, familiar, and smelled faintly of berries.

She looked past him to see his anbu guards, a monkey faced man and a pig faced one. They stepped out at her glance, shutting the door behind them.

"Hi-Hiyori," Sasuke choked out, drawing her attention and let out the most pitiful wail she'd ever heard. It pained her heart in ways nothing could. In response, Yuri peppered kisses along his forehead when he pulled back to rub his tears away. For the first time she'd met him, he was inconsolable with the floodgate of his tears. It was so un-Sasuke-like she wondered in a panic if someone hijacked her kid, but no, he was him.

"I'm so sorry," Yuri whispered and cupped his chin with one hand, rubbing at the teardrops that ran along his cheek and into her palm. "I'm so sorry."

"DON'T APOLOGIZE!" he shouted out, causing her to jump. "It wasn't—! It wasn't . . . none of it was _your_ fault! So why are you apologizing? _Don't_ apologize! I don't want to hear it!"

He straightened out and watched her with burning eyes, biting at a shaking lip and fisting his hands at his sides. He looked so small then, in way he had never looked before.

"It wasn't _your_ fault. Not _your_ fault," he repeated softer.

A fresh bout of tears surfaced along the seam of his eyelids. When he spoke next, he sounded broken.

"Why can't these fuckers do their jobs? Do none of them have common sense? Do none of them think at all? Are any of them even competent? Are they _trying_ to get rid of us?"

Yuri tried not to laugh, but she failed when a small breathy chuckle surfaced. Sasuke looked at her keenly, obviously wondering what she found humorous about this obviously _un_ funny situation, and really his questions were very good ones and ones she'd asked as well. But she'd just accepted it as . . . well this world was really fucked up.

This universe had _child soldiers_. So had her last one, but not in the same sense and certainly not input in such an institutionalized fashion where it occurred in a school setting at an _international_ level. She didn't know much of this worlds geography, if there were other land masses aside from the one she was on—most likely yes—but clearly every country worth their salt taught their children to murder first and ask questions later as a rule of thumb practically from the crib. Was it any wonder why this world bled in such a way?

Those children raised to kill became desensitized adults which then raised other desensitized children that eventually fed the problem. It was such a strange thing for her to realize, coming from such a relatively peaceful time zone within Japan, although the same couldn't be said for the rest of her old world.

Hashirama and Madara had wished for peace and a place for children to grow up being children first, but what they created was a world made to war with each other on a larger scale with more clans and people involved _starting_ at their childhood.

She didn't know how to respond to Sasuke, was already aware how lacking in faith he had with the adults around him. She wondered if he had any faith in her. The air was a bit heavy and awkward as she prepared to spout out nonsense she hoped he wouldn't remember before he got his comment in first.

"When I graduate," he began. "I'm going to show them how a real shinobi does things. My mom named me Sasuke for a reason." After the greatest ninja in history. Yuri felt a smile stretching at her lips.

"I believe it," Yuri tugged at his stray hand at his side and pulled him onto the bed with her. "You are going to be a very great ninja one day. The likes of which is rarely seen."

He nodded, as if there were no doubts, snuggling into her side as he tended to do, and slung his arm over her stomach in habit but jerked back at once. She blinked and frowned at his expression. He explained shortly, "Your belly. It's weird they're not in there anymore."

"Did you . . ," she hesitated to ask. "See them yet?"

"Aeru-sensei let me see them once. They're so small, Yori. And red. They looked like deformed potatoes trying to imitate tomatoes." His face flushed.

"A pomato?" she asked, to alleviate the tension.

She was terrified her babies wouldn't make it, but she had all the faith in Aeru to see them through. She didn't want Sasuke to fear though. She doubted the rest of the shinobi forces, but not Aeru. That woman had saved her life not once, but twice. She already owed her everything, but if she could make sure her children survived, that would be another thing all together.

"Ew." Sasuke screwed up his face. "But yeah, I guess. What are their names by the way? We never talked about this."

"I want to meet them before I decide. I was under the impression until recently it was just the one, after all!" She chuckled lightly, happy despite everything. "I had been thinking of naming it after someone in our clan but . . . they should have their own names, right? Names they can make their own."

Sasuke nodded, "I already took the best one, but I'm sure with a bit of imagination you can find two almost just as good."

She outright laughed, and it felt good. _So good_.

So good she cried a little, and kissed Sasuke's hand when he wiped the stray tears away.

Gods, she loved him so much.

* * *

 **起死回生**

* * *

A few days later she was allowed to meet them. It was both disquieting and humbling at once. They really were so small, she was afraid that touching them would break them.

Two little boys with shocks of dark hair, separated into each different incubators with rubber tubes in their nostrils, patches along their chest, in white diapers and sleeping soundly. At first she was worried with all the machinery, it gave her a picture that they were dying. That they were supremely fragile and could disappear at any minute, but apparently the tubes in their noses were for feeding, and the rest for breathing.

"They can't eat on their own, not for another two weeks where we will hopefully get them on your tits. It might not happen that they latch on, really depends. For now the IV and the breast milk we pumped earlier will keep them both up and healthy," a blond nurse told her. She was a lot taller than Yuri, and a bit intimidating at first but the moment the woman opened her mouth, she could tell the nurse—who introduced herself as Umeki Nayumi, but insisted she use Nayu, just Nayu—was the good natured charismatic sort. It was odd how quickly put to ease Yuri was.

"So, names? I keep calling this one Ichi and this one Ni," Nayu commented fondly.

Yuri looked at the babies and felt odd.

"I don't know. Can I have a moment?" Nayu nodded and gave her careful warnings not to wake or otherwise jostle them before departing for wherever.

Yuri still felt odd.

She looked at them, and kept looking but nothing came to her. No names, no feelings, not even a sense of possession. Logically she knew these babies had camped out in her womb for the past several months, and that they were as a result _hers_ , but it was such an alien feeling and she felt displaced.

Her breath quickened and she rubbed at the base of her skull, trying to stay _there_ in her body. She pinched her bandaged wrists, the burning sensation bringing her back with a quick jolt.

Was it not weird to be a mother? Wasn't it so strange?

Her fingers trailed to the bottom of her stomach, somehow missing the feeling of them in there.

There were clipboards on each of their incubators. She picked up one and eyed the date they were born: May 30th, the dying month of spring, where summer took its place. The time read 5 in the morning. 5:37 to be exact. This boy was the older one. She set the clipboard down and reached for the second. His time read 5:41. She set it down.

She breathed in slowly, and allowed herself to come to terms with her new reality. Certainly it would be difficult, but so had starting over as a different person; so had everything she'd ever done. And this new reality had so much potential, didn't it?

Yuri had to be an optimist. So she thought of the most optimistic person she'd ever met—or had the pleasure of remembering—Uchiha Tomoharu, her children's father. She imagined what his expression would be at learning that she carried twins, what he'd think of fathering two boys. Twins were so rare in the Uchiha clan. She couldn't note a pair in recent history, or even as far back as the Warring Clans period.

She smiled. Tomoharu would have been so damn happy, and so damn smug she could hear the howling already. If only.

With a soft exhale, she leaned closer to look at her two children, wondering who they would take after more. She hoped their father—the world could use more happy people. Their faces were so scrunched and tiny though, so she couldn't really say for sure. They were certainly Uchiha, though. Of that, there was no doubt.

She looked at the older one, cocked her head and decided at once the first thing that came to mind. "You're Haruhi. Haruhi and then Asahi." She chuckled. "Such girly names. Your father would have had me trussed up like a chicken if he knew." If only.

If only.

* * *

起死回生 — kishikaisei — noun, revival from the brink of death; recovering from a hopeless situation; resuscitation; revitalization

twins, because i'm cruel, it will amuse me, give me a challenge, and i'm also a twin so i am biased.

before someone says "why didn't they notice beforehand there were twins," well, lemme tell you all about how my mom's life got turned upside down and how i became an existence that's here and writing this fan fiction. before i was born way back when, the doctors didn't know my mom was carrying twins—all the way up until taa-dahh, like a magic trick i popped out! i was much smaller than my sister because she ate all of my food and nearly me as well, but here i am. just saying, it happens. some twins are like me and like to hideout like the shinobi we clearly are. (although that might be because technology wasn't as great back then so idk about nowadays, don't me) also i kept it vague early on for a reason because i wasn't sure which route i wanted to take.

you poor souls are lucky i didn't have it in me to kill these children, even if they are fictional.

For anyone curious and aren't as weeb as me (you're reading this though so like, odds are in your favor your aware, but this is for the kids in the back) : Haruhi means spring day/sunlight and Asahi means morning sun. Hope you like em!

BTW if anyone is confused between calling her Hiyori or Yuri, don't be, they one in the same now and I get confused too. That's the struggle having two main characters sharing the same body even though one is very much deceased but alive in our hearts. UvU

Sorry again for taking so long! This time I was moving states and getting settled, so hope you don't kill me.


	13. Premonition of Love

"I'm going to drop one of them."

"No you're not, don't worry about it."

"No, I'm going to drop them—"

"You're freaking out over nothing, you silly woman. If you hold them correctly, you'll have no reason to fear. In fact, I'm sure you'll do fantastic."

Umeki Nayumi handed her Haruhi then, and looked to be laughing when Yuri's eyes widened to saucers and clutched at the baby in worry that he would spontaneously fall to the floor at her first touch. When nothing happened besides his flailing legs and his puffy cheeks blowing out from a sleepy baby gurgle, Yuri relaxed a bit. Just a tiny bit.

"Now rest him in the crook of your arm, and cradle his head," Nayu instructed her. Biting her lip, she assumed the natural position, and yet felt like an imposter holding someone else's child. There was something so strange and alien about the four week old, just the fact that he somehow existed and had survived so much in the span of his short time alive was mind boggling—least of all that _she_ was his mother. Did she even deserve such a role?

"Want to try breastfeeding?"

Yuri jumped and glared at the nurse, clutching the baby closer to her—but not too close, she feared crushing him. Her heated expression then turned to an anxious one.

"Was it not enough the last time we pumped?" Yuri, or well, Hiyori had very small breasts when she first arrived and although they'd ballooned in size and . . . well she lactated a lot these days, it was a great fear of hers that her body would refuse to ply her newborns with the sustenance they needed. It spoke to her fear that she subconsciously and on a bodily level didn't want these children, or more that she would never be enough to take care of them. It also spoke to the fact she feared she was too selfish and that her body would be just as selfish in withholding food. Something she did often to make Sasuke knew he was welcome and loved was cook for him and if she couldn't do that naturally for the twins . . .

Nayu shook her head, "You're fine, Hiyori-san. Really all things considered there are no issues with your breastmilk. Just wondering if you want to try it. It's not for everyone, but it helps with those in your situation to form bonds with your newborn. Besides, they just developed the ability to suck and blow, so if you're ever going to try, now is the best time."

Yuri wasn't sure which embarrassed her more—the discussion of breastfeeding, or the fact she was so obvious with her weird behavior towards her babies.

She bit her lip, considering.

"I-I don't know how. And what if they don't like it? Some preemies don't right?" Yuri hadn't gotten used to the tubes, but it's what kept them stable and healthy so they were a necessary evil.

"You never know unless you try," Nayu said plainly. "It's different for each one so I can't say which it would be for your kids."

Yuri looked at the small weight in her hands and wondered what Tomoharu would say. Restless, she began to stroke her child's cheek, imagining his father was there with her. The boy was too much of a pomato to be sure who he took after most. There was their shared black hair that was soft and in disarray most of the time, and the same onyx hued gazed of the rest of their clan, but those were things Hiyori and Tomoharu had shared.

Tomoharu would probably say, _He has_ my _eyes. In fact, both of our kids look like_ me. And then he'd smirk at her, as if all their time spent incubating inside of her was just a means to an end to discover she'd actually reproduced two carbon copies of their father. She smiled at the thought. If they were anything like him, she prayed she had the patience to withstand them both.

"Okay," Yuri agreed, feeling more comfortable with the newborn in her arms.

She just had to adapt. They were hers for the rest of their lives—longer actually, they would . . . they would _always_ be hers. And she would always be theirs. And there was nothing, not even death or the end of the world, that could change that fact that surely happened because here she sat in a chair across from a nurse with laughing eyes who held her second son. This was all real, and she couldn't be convinced otherwise.

And no matter what, they will have had existed, and nothing, _absolutely nothing_ could take that from either of them.

It embarrassed Yuri, though she understood how natural this all was, but she listened to Nayu's instructions on how to properly go about latching, and what positions were most comfortable to be in when feeding a baby. She then handed her a pillow to prop Haruhi up and said nothing of the fact that Yuri had to show off breasts she hadn't been born with so wasn't sure it was properly right to be showing off to anyone without permission. But well . . . they were hers now.

She was a nervous wreck and wondered if all mothers were like this at first, of if it was an instinct that she somehow lacked. Was she lacking? Surely she was . . . but no, she couldn't think like that. She had to be positive. She had to think that—that whatever bad thoughts she had went directly to her breast milk which would be bad for the babies! Yes. She had to think positively so they kept healthy.

Was that an odd thought process or was it just her?

For whatever reason, it made it easier for her to think past the fact a baby was about to do for the first time was biologically the purpose for boobs. Feed from her.

 _He's not a leech_ , she immediately told herself, trying not to think about her first pregnancy the day she found out about it. Luckily, she hadn't named either of her sons Hiru like she thought she would.

"Would you like to do it alone, or do you mind me here?" Nayu asked, to which Yuri pleaded the nurse for privacy. She had her instructions, surely it wouldn't be too difficult.

At first when she tried holding her breast in front of the baby he made no move to suckle. She thought, _maybe he's not hungry_ , but no, this was his usual time for feedings, or at least around this time. It had most likely been planned by Nayu for her to try this today to get the ball rolling.

She was uncomfortable and felt odd just holding her nipple in front of a baby even if that was its purpose, but there was this tight sense of revulsion making its way through her stomach. In her past body her breasts had always been a very sore subject for her. It'd been one of the eye catching things about Ueda Yuriko, and later one of her most hated parts of herself.

She didn't like the feeling of lips on her breasts, nor did she like the feeling of saliva on her either. It brought up too many bad memories. Immediately she shook her head of the thoughts.

This was different than that, so completely different; she was just afraid and was dredging up the past to excuse herself from having to do something daunting.

She had to remember that although one always faced the future equipped with their past, one always lived in the present. And in this present there was a child who needed sustenance. This was like the situation with Sasuke. And Yuri would never let a child go hungry.

Slowly, her son latched, taking her nipple into his mouth and closing his eyes as he gently suckled. Strangely, it wasn't as odd as she thought it would be. It was completely normal. So normal in fact, she laughed a bit. She realized that some of the scariest things in life weren't even all that terrifying. Some things were just plain mundane.

* * *

 **恋の予感**

* * *

Umeki Nayumi was a goddess placed on this earth to show others what to aspire to. She was a perfect being, and always reinvigorated Yuri when she thought she could go no further. She was the succor of life, the balm to her wounds!

Sincerely, Yuri didn't know what the fuck she'd do without her as she had no older family members, no friends, and no contacts to help in the raising the two of them. It was a daunting future ahead of her. The first few weeks in the hospital were hard but in a different way. Haruhi and Asahi were mostly looked after by round the clock nurses who got paid to wipe their asses, clean off spit and vomit, and whatever gross fluids came out. It was heaven for a new mother, but it was also hell when she realized soon she would be completely on her own with three children to take care of.

That was oddly magical in a very disconcerting way. All of it was just so crazy to her. And it had been Nayu who'd been there throughout it all. Aeru was usually busy as Head Nurse, or something. Yuri hadn't even known she'd been so important, but thank the gods Nayu was there.

By the time she was all set to go home, she was _terrified_.

 _I'm going to have to hire a full time bodyguard and nanny, aren't I? Maybe I'll be lucky and get two in one? Hopefully?_ She sent the prayer to the heavens, expecting no reply.

It wasn't the craziest idea, Yuri knew when she was out of her depth and wasn't too prideful to admit that she was afraid of leaving the hospital. Here meant safety and help. The outside meant she could be targeted and kidnapped. Or worse her _children_ could be targeted and kidnapped. They were more prone than she was!

Being a mother, she found, was exhilarating as it was absolutely terrifying. Everything was dangerous in her head. Everything could possibly be the end to her kids. But that was her intense paranoia speaking. Right? Keeping a clear head as a mother was harder than it was when she wasn't.

"Did I baby proof _everything_?" she wondered allowed in a whisper. In anticipation for the baby she'd set up a nursery in the apartment, but hadn't been back in the two months they allowed her to stay in the hospital with her babies so she couldn't be sure if everything was truly okay for two newborns—technically two month olds, but they were finally catching up to actual newborns.

Yuri had been told to subtract eight weeks when comparing the developmental stage of regular infants to Haruhi and Asahi. It made sense, those eight weeks should have been spent in her womb.

Ugh, she was so worried!

Not that there was anything wrong with them. They were both quite healthy, had minimal troubles and health issues, and everything worked like a dream. They didn't cry for much, were quiet and snuggly, but that didn't change the fact that there were _two_ of them and only one of her.

"I'm in over my head."

"It'll be _fine_ ," Nayu said, carrying one of the twins. Asahi, Yuri thought, but maybe not. They were so hard to tell who was who, Yuri had gotten colored string to tell them apart. Haruhi was blue and Asahi was red. "You know, I have a two year old myself, so I know what you're going through. Maybe we can set up playdates later on." Nayu winked.

"Uh—"

"Oh, we don't have to if you're uncomfortable. I know you Uchiha like to keep to yourselves."

"Not at all!" Yuri said quickly. "I mean, I would really like that. If you—maybe even sooner, we can . . . ." Her cheeks were on fire, she was so embarrassed.

Nayu laughed, her green eyes sparkling. She cocked her hip, "You could use a friend, Yori. I'll come by sometime, 'Kay? Expect my lovely face and the cutest little girl you've ever laid eyes on! She gets it from me, of course. Between you and me, her daddy's a bit on the unfortunate ugly side, but I love that idiot all the same."

Yuri found herself laughing along side the woman, nerves forgotten as she bent down to pick up her youngest. Yup, she had been wrong and not for the first time either. She held Asahi while Haruhi was in the nurse's arms. Breastfeeding her babies had certainly helped her, she realized as she leaned down to kiss her sons super soft cheeks and breathed in his scent completely because she wanted to and she felt no nerves doing it. New baby smell, she found, was the absolute best until they shit their diapers.

"So you're married?" Yuri asked, curious as she looked up.

"Yup, as of last year. My daughter was a happy accident, and that's why I named her Yukai. The happy part, not the accident. I think she carries it well. What about you? Any love on the horizon?"

Yuri shrugged. Sometimes people asked questions forgetting exactly who they were talking to. It was absolutely too soon for her to "move on", and the only person she could even fathom being in a physical relationship with was Tomoharu. And he wasn't an option.

Her heart constricted. She missed him keenly, though she was unsure which side of her that came from, Hiyori or Yuriko, it didn't change the fact that each day felt brighter and all the more darker without him in it. It was backwards in a way, Tomoharu had been gone for months now, but everyday since their sons birth she had started dreaming of him again, and this time with a vengeance. She grieved him now more than she ever had before when she had no clue he'd ever existed.

She missed things about him that belonged to Hiyori. Simply talking, about anything and everything. Playing around. Kissing. The last one was a complete surprise to her, that she could even stand the thought of it, but with Tomoharu it had always been a pleasant burn in her abdomen. It was gentle, soft breaths peppered onto her cheeks and the taste of him on any given moment. He loved sweet things, so always he tasted of sugar cookies, candied apples and milk chocolate.

It all felt so _good_ with him. Not that everything had always been great with him, but seeing as he was dead—a fact she struggled to comprehend several months after the fact—she couldn't very well dredge up the memories of when things were less than stellar.

Nayu took her silence in and blinked before sputtering, "Oh I'm so sorry! I'm so insensitive, forgive me, Hiyori. I completely forgo—"

"It's alright," Yuri cut in, doing her best to smile. She had a feeling it was lacking.

"If you need to talk to anybody, I'm here, you know. And serious about being friends, if you haven't noticed."

Yuri looked to the nurse and then the linoleum flooring. She could certainly use a confident, but she didn't trust the woman entirely. Well, she didn't trust anyone within this world besides Sasuke, so she wasn't sure what her choices were. But . . . what could it hurt? Nayu was a mother herself, a nurse, and she was kind. The likeliness of that all being a mask wasn't too high.

She hoped.

"I'm quite happy you feel that way," she replied primly before her cheeks reddened again. "I feel the same."

"Perfect!" Nayu crowed before slinging a free arm around Yuri's shoulder, startling a napping Haruhi.

She found herself genuinely smiling after a few moments.

* * *

 **恋の予感**

* * *

Yuri wasn't sure if it was planned, or a happenstance when she stood at the door to her apartment to head inside, and directly across from her was a shaggy brown haired man with purple markings down his face. Despite herself, she bit her cheek to keep from making any outright signs that she knew something was amiss as a far away memory of someone quite similar in appearance crossed her mind. She had to swallow the urge to laugh. She didn't even think he had this persona all the way this far back.

 _I should be angry with him, not laughing!_ It rang in her head like the sound of a gong while at the same time, _What is he even doing here?_

"Good afternoon," she said politely as Sasuke stepped in front of her, arms crossing with a stern glare for the 'stranger'.

"What're you looking at?" Sasuke questioned darkly.

Since the hospital, Sasuke had been worrying her lately. He had always been such an emotional boy, even from what she could remember of his canon self—though he'd perfected his poker face then—during the past few weeks he'd been outright rude and callous to perfect strangers. He was cold and mouthed off if someone irritated him enough, and he was brooding more often to himself.

Like her, he didn't seem to be able to trust anyone aside from each other. It reminded her a little of the boy she saw at the start of the series. It was entirely understandable for him to be acting out, she just felt so helpless watching him wallow in his continued grief while holding a clearer fear of her disappearing on him. He was definitely struggling mentally, and was disturbed at a sickening level. But who wouldn't be in his situation?

His entire family was murdered by the sole person his world revolved around and idolized, and then his pregnant cousin who miraculously survived alongside him gets kidnapped, all underneath the noses of those who should be diligent and protecting them. And he was eight now. Still such a child.

She shook her head of the thoughts and looked at the unfolding seen as Kaka—Ahem!—Sukea stared down Sasuke with a humoring smile.

"Why hello there, Uchiha-kun is it?"

"Tch," Sasuke puffed his chest out. "Who's asking?"

"The name is Sukea, just Sukea."

"I take it you're new around here?" Yuri asked to draw the attention away from her temperamental ward.

Kakashi dressed as Sukea trained a polite upturn of his lips that he probably thought was a smile, but to her was definitely a smirk. "I moved in a week ago. Nice to meet you, Uchiha-san." He bowed his head a bit, jostling a camera at his side.

"Yes, nice to meet you, too. You seem to know who I am, though if you're somehow unaware, my name is Uchiha Hiyori, and this is my cousin, Sasuke."

"And your little ones?"

Yuri glanced at the twins, nestled in their carrier and sleeping soundly despite the long walk under the afternoon sun they'd endured. They hated being separated in the hospital, it was just easier to keep them together.

"This one is Haruhi, and this one Asahi."

Kakashi—ahem, Sukea's lips quirked. "I see there's a common theme here."

"Sibling names," she agreed.

"Not just that; your crest is a fan, they each have fire in their names. I find it interesting when a fan is often used to make a flame grow."

"What a . . . poetic thing to say," she replied drolly, annoyed. She realized this was his 'artistic' OC he made for a lack of a better word that he was roleplaying, but really? That was his opener? She was disappointed. It was so pretentious. "Well, good day to you. I suppose we'll be seeing you around, neighbor."

* * *

恋の予感 —koi no yokan — the premonition of love, usually at first sight.

Romance y'all. I'm doin it. C:

Thank you so, so much for 300+ reviews! It's the most I've ever received on any fic and I just have to let you all know how thankful I am for you all.


	14. The Pity of All Things

Sasuke looked in on his baby cousins sleeping peacefully in the crib Hiyori had built quite some time ago. There were two separate rooms they could have used as a nursery, but there was this sense of unease both Sasuke and Hiyori felt when it came to separating. As such, it was a tight squeeze, but they would all sleep in the same room. It was as much for the twins sake as it was for them, Sasuke figured.

"They're still so tiny," he noted with a touch of awe. "Haruhi is bigger though. Just look at his face." So pinchable. Like the dough of bread.

"How do you know which one is which?" Hiyori asked with subtle mirth. They were both covered in blankets so their colored bracelets were hidden.

Sasuke smirked. "You can't?"

She smacked him at the back of his head, and his smile grew, chuckling at the red spotting at her cheeks. Training her eyes on the two month old babies, a soft smile lit her even softer features. She then reached into their crib and pulled back the blanket and gently pried the tiny hands with the bracelets on up for them to see. Neither baby stirred aside from Asahi who gurgled as Hiyori frowned and narrowed her eyes at Sasuke. He'd been right, of course, Haruhi was the bigger one. It came with being older, he guessed.

They stared at each other for a few more seconds before the two of them released quiet breathes of laughter until silence descended upon them once more.

"Are you planning on going back to the Academy?" Hiyori asked suddenly, resetting the blanket.

Sasuke felt his face screw up. He didn't want to think about that necessary evil, not right then with such a peaceful moment hanging in the air. They were so few and far between; the world always seemed to be in a constant state of ending.

Hiyori pulled away from the crib and reached towards him, slipping her fingers into his hair and drawing closer to kiss him on the forehead. His cousin had been so tactile recently, but Sasuke couldn't even pretend to dislike it. In fact he enjoyed it—too long he'd gone without feeling, and it was only when Hiyori was there that he was certain he could feel at all.

When everyone had been taken from him . . .

He'd learned a new word recently, apathy. He'd read it in a book in his family library. It had said it was a desired trait in a shinobi, that those who could suppress their emotions were better at their jobs and received promotions faster. But he'd looked it up in a dictionary and it didn't sound desirable. It was frightening to him. It reminded him of Itachi, who had risen through the ranks without equal, and of himself with that empty chasm in his chest. He didn't want to be _anything_ like his brother.

"The system is messed up," he said with a grit to his teeth, not even realizing that he was just saying what he was thinking. Understanding that his words probably hadn't made sense in context he added, "I'm going back when I damn well feel like it and not a moment before. But when I do, Hiyori, I'm going to turn it on it's head."

She did the unexpected thing and smiled, pulling back with a sparkle to her eyes.

"My revolutionary hero, huh? But be careful, Sasuke, that they don't hear you talk like that. Worlds like this one, in countries like ours, with leaders like our own; they don't appreciate disobedience or the difference of thought. Strike them when they least expect it though, it you plan to take them by storm."

Then she chuckled again, running her hands through his hair. "Oh no," she murmured so softly he almost didn't catch it, "did I just encourage another sort of Uchiha _coup d'état_?"

He honestly couldn't say he understood what that meant. Perhaps he'd misheard her.

"What's a _coup d'état_?" he asked to be sure. She frowned and had this far away look in her eyes like she did when she was lost in thought. He was certain she hadn't heard him when she responded.

"It's when . . . well, when you have a revolution. A separate, perhaps smaller minority overthrows the bigger majority to instill their own thoughts and ideas into law making and such, in terms of government takeovers. Their goal can be a mix of things. For change to better their country, their social standings, or to take complete control for their own benefit. Maybe even to enact revenge for a perceived insult. It's like a quick civil war, but they usually happen quickly rather than dragged out and in the span of days, though the planning itself takes time."

Sasuke cocked his head, it was his own turn to frown. "Why did you say 'another' sort of Uchiha _coup d'état_? _Was_ there another one?"

Hiyori's lips parted, eyes widening.

"God am I an idiot," she muttered much to his bemusement, her eyes focusing on him again. She bit her lip, the thing she did when nervous and stressed. She did it so often there was always a redness to them. "Sasuke this isn't a very pleasant topic."

"What, am I too _young_?" he said it with a scoff. She narrowed her eyes.

"Yes, but I don't think you'd take it well at any age, let alone _now_. It's much too fresh, too soon." She sighed, rubbing her hand against her chest. "Sometimes I wish _I_ didn't know."

It peaked his curiosity when before it'd been just been a question to ask. But there was an odd expression on her face, something that told him instinctively she was hiding something from him more concerning than a history of family coup's he hadn't learned about when he and his agemates in the clan learned about their past and bloodline. There was something she was afraid for him to know.

"Tell me," he insisted, and followed her as she trailed from the bedroom and to the kitchen where she immediately went to the refrigerator. She crouched down and pulled out chilled meat for their dinner. They almost ran into each other when Sasuke stepped in front of her as she turned back to shut the fridge. He was quick in reflex, but surprisingly she was quicker, sidestepping him and leaving him to close the refrigerator. He did so, but continued to trail after her.

Hiyori groaned in annoyance when he appeared at her side again, her brows furrowing, concern clouding her expression as she released another pent up sigh.

"Sasuke . . ."

"I promise not to freak out," he assured her. "Just tell me. Was this something in the past and how far back? Did we lose some fight? Is that why the village hates us so much? Is that why? Tell me please, but most importantly," he trained an unrelenting pair of dark eyes her way. "What are you afraid of me knowing?"

Hiyori quickly turned away from him, pulling out a chopping board and a knife from the stand by the sink. She was so quiet he was sure she'd just flat out ignore him until she responded.

"The truth," she whispered. "I'm afraid of you becoming even more disenchanted. Of the shine in your eyes dying. I would hate to see that. I've only just gotten back your smile after all, and recently it's dimmed again. I don't want you to lose it, but I know it's possible."

Hiyori always had a way of shocking him with her words, that and confusing him.

She said what she was thinking without reservation, he'd found, even the cheesier, heartfelt thoughts that made him feel embarrassed. How anyone could say such words, even with their backs turned to the recipient . . . he couldn't fathom that sort of idiocy—no, wrong word, Hiyori was anything but an idiot . . . courage maybe?

From the moment she stood across from him when they first started living together, and she told him that she didn't want to be alone. That she didn't think either of them should be, she'd set up a precedent of being surprising. And then she'd proceeded to feed him and invaded his life like a bulldozer. It'd been such a tasteless meal at the time but the longer she'd been there, always waiting with food for him to eat, he had begun to taste again. Life had color when she was near, different from the grey and ashy hues everything had looked like just a few months ago. Perhaps it was because she was calm by nature and it never failed to sooth him even when he was aggravated.

He'd found he could even stand the sugary desserts she made, the sweetness of it having at one point being an annoyance he couldn't stand. It had always made his stomach queasy or cringe with the overwhelming flavor of it in his mouth. The only fruit he liked was also considered a vegetable, yet he could eat the ice cream mochi she handmade, or the sugar cookies she baked. And the strangest part would be that he would like it.

"I promise I'll still smile for you, always," he muttered gruffly. He almost hoped she wouldn't hear, part of him fearing that he'd break it.

He watched her raise a forearm to wipe her face against it. She set the knife down and shifted to look back at him. He saw the wet sheen of tears on her cheeks as she turned. He hated it when she cried, despised seeing that lost look in her eyes. He almost apologized, almost made a change to the subject until her voice broke through the silence.

"Sasuke, there's said to be curse on our family. Did you know that?"

He blinked. "A curse?"

She sighed and picked up the knife again and began cutting at the chicken on her cutting board. "I doubt it's an _actual_ curse, just a trait we all seem to share. But then again . . ." She shook her head. "It's called the Curse of Hatred."

"Why? What is it? What does it do? And where are you going with this?" he asked with a touch of annoyance. He had no clue what this 'curse' of theirs had anything to do with the subject they'd just been talking about. He was near certain she was trying to distract him.

"If anything it should be a curse of love," she said softly, ignoring him.

Sasuke's eyebrows knitted together as he took a seat at the dining table, watching her work from a few feet away.

He was going to ask her to elaborate when she continued, "It's widely known that as a clan we are usually a people of great stoicism. It's in our reputation to be unfeeling and strong, we show no emotion as it's encouraged to be that way so we preach it from youth. One of the shinobi rules is to show as little feeling as possible, right? Well from what I've observed, outsider's have always felt uneasy with us because we're so seemingly adept at this particular rule. So many from our clan have held positions of great privilege, many of us are prodigal. We're powerful. Monstrous. We have a kekkai genkai that men kill for, yearn for, even _die for_. Yet it is simply ours at the price of who we are. And we do it all keeping our true selves hidden for the sake our clan, for outsider's find it difficult to understand the way we are."

His stomach sank for some reason that he himself didn't understand. He was . . . anxious to hear more.

"It cannot be further from the truth Sasuke, that we cannot feel. Our sharingan, the power that makes us so famous and so envied, are eyes that only open when true pain is felt. It is a necessary exchange for the sharingan to be received, that burdensome feeling. Not everyone, even us Uchiha, have it in us to feel such sadness and so not everyone ever unlocks it. But when someone we love is in dire need and we need to protect them, when someone of our heart dies and the world splinters because of it . . . I'm sure you're familiar with that grief. Our clan may not have ever been the sort to show off our love, but we have it in spades. Loyalty, adoration, that sense that we have to protect each other. We love so much Sasuke, so _much_. And it's not always a good thing. We're ruthless. Ironically, with our superior eyes we can never see beyond ourselves and our close ones to realize how our resulting actions can ripple those around us. Forest for the trees, trees for the forest. Neither of it is of consequence. Sometimes we do foolish things for the sake of vengeance because of it."

Silence reigned for a moment aside from the chopping of her knife. There was something grim about the gentle sound of her voice, how slow she spoke, enunciating every word perfectly.

"You know, it's a defense mechanism of ours to hide it. It's our greatest weakness, because we act with our hearts and it is the most vulnerable piece of ourselves. Yet it is our strongest weapon. We guard it to our utmost, even if we are only subconsciously aware of this. Outsider's have no understanding of this. It's because of this lack of understanding, the fact their ignorant well . . . people fear that which they cannot comprehend. They dislike that which frightens them, which only sows the seeds of hatred. People often seek to destroy the things they hate, after all, because they are so often the things that make them afraid."

"So people are afraid of us?" Still he had no idea where she was going with this.

"Undoubtedly some are. But who can blame them? We have eyes that can manipulate the flow of chakra, disrupt the senses, swallow a person's entire reality with a glance. We can so easily enter their heads in a way far more terrifying than the Yamanaka, steal their thoughts, force them to do our bidding. We can make them think they're seeing the greatest of dreams, or a nightmare come to life. What's to stop us from using it on others? We so readily declare ourselves for our clan first and the village second. We live and die by our emblem without reservation because we feel such loyalty to each other, those who can understand us. And they have no sense of where they fit into that, so they fear we'll turn on them. Er . . . well I suppose it _was_ a fear. You see, when this village of Konoha was founded, you know our clan had a major part in it, right?"

Sasuke nodded, though she couldn't see it with her back turned, so he released a small, "Hn."

"It's kind of funny," she said as she bustled around the kitchen. The sound of something sizzling crackled in the air. "There was no bloodier time than in the Warring Clans Era, is what if I've heard. Things have sort of settled in this day and age, though there are still great wars that happen now and then between villages rather than simply clans, but during that time, everyone of differing families were at each other's throats. And there was none who fought more viciously than our own and the Senju. We were the strongest around; all of us monsters in our own right. With all that said, we can thank our very own Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama for the way things are today."

Sasuke felt himself smirk, but was a bit confuddled that he'd never heard the name Madara before. If he had any dealings with the first Hokage, he should have been aware of it right? But perhaps no one had got to tell him yet, and this had always been meant to be a future history lesson.

"It's funny because at one point Madara must have had a larger heart than the rest of our clan did, because he was the only one who managed to befriend someone considered an enemy where we are usually so staunch against outsiders. Even to those that _aren't_ enemies. And it was a kid with a funny haircut skipping stones along a river that he met. Both of them each had reasons to hate each other on sight, because Madara used to have three other brothers who were killed during skirmishes, and Hashirama himself had siblings that had died as well. This is why neither of them told the other who they were at first, and so they met over and over during a breadth of time in anonymity, starting as a rivalry which turned into a growing friendship.

"What really brought them together was talking of what they wanted their futures to look like. What they wanted to eventually create. An era of peace, they said, where children wouldn't have to fight anymore, not like they did then. Where children like their brothers would never have had to die in the first place. When both found out the truth that the other belonged to their rival clan, they both had a choice to make: loyalty to their family or their friendship. Madara ended up choosing his family, completely cutting ties with Hashirama, mainly so that when they met on the battlefield again, as they surely would, it wouldn't be so hard to cut him down."

Sasuke nodded. It was what any good Uchiha would do. Family was everything. He couldn't even imagine choosing a _friend_ over Hiyori, even if he could say he had one. It was nonsensical. It wasn't a route Sasuke could ever take.

"But Hashirama was always stronger than Madara, and so even in battle, when they did cross paths again, it would always end in a stalemate because Hashirama refused to kill someone he still considered a friend. And one day, Madara's sole brother, Izuna, whom he was closest to and loved above all the rest, was murdered by Hashirama's brother, Tobirama. This wasn't something Madara could just forgive or easily forget. So even when they both rose to claim leadership of their respective clans, Madara refused to broker peace when Hashirama pleaded for it. At the time, even other members of the Uchiha clan yearned for it, they were all so tired of the constant battling and bloodshed. They had all lost so much.

"It was only until Madara waged one last assault on the Senju clan that ended with a loss for him, and Hashirama offering to end his own life as penance for his grudge, did things really begin to change. Madara was moved by Hashirama's desire to make things right, and it placated him for a time. It was then they formed our village known as Konohagakure, because they saw it through the leaves. Hashirama and Madara were able to become friends again as a result, but they soon found they each had differing ideas on how our village should be run. Long story short, because I'm realizing I'm rambling, Madara left. No one expected for him to come back in hand with the kyuubi, but that's what he did."

Sasuke blinked, keeping his face carefully blank. How could one just . . . come back with a tailed beast?

"It's something our sharingan can do, control the tailed beasts," Hiyori answered his question unknowingly. "Madara knew this, and he wanted to tear up the village because he thought it was a failed experiment or something. You see, Izuna's death kind of made him insane, you'll probably realize this later on. Anyways, it again, as always, ended as a loss for Madara and he was . . . er—he was murdered I suppose."

He cocked his head, "You suppose?"

"Yes. Well, he _is_ dead _now_." She made a distressed noise, and her voice heightened in pitch. "Sasuke can you set up the table?"

He jumped from his seat, sort of embarrassed that she had to ask. Usually he was on top of these things, but recently coming home from mostly staying with Hiyori at the hospital had messed up the mundanity of what they did. When he crossed her side to reach into the cabinet, Hiyori pressed into him and kissed him in the forehead again.

"I love you," she murmured. Sasuke felt his chest puff up as an odd wave of bittersweet feeling engulfed him. He . . . loved her, too. Maybe Hiyori had a point about the Uchiha feeling _too_ much, rather than the lack of it. When he felt numb, was it because he was too overwhelmed with all the other emotions? _Was_ it a defense mechanism?

Quickly he turned away from her with the plates and their chopsticks in hand, needing space away from her for reasons even he himself didn't understand. Maybe it was just how overwhelmed he felt then, just from those words alone. She hadn't used suki, he noted, she had used ai. As young as he was, he knew how rare it was to be said in all seriousness.

When the table was set up, she began to bring back various side dishes she'd made earlier in the day. He followed suit until their table was filled.

"I think I may have gone a bit overboard," Hiyori chuckled. "I forget I'm not eating for someone else."

Sasuke nodded, "I was going to say something earlier, but you had this determined look on your face. Didn't want to get in the way."

She smiled fondly at him.

"As you were saying though," he encouraged her, waiting for her to take a bite so he could take one as well. She bit into a bite of spiced chicken, and swallowed after a round of chewing. He decided he wanted some rice first.

"Sasuke, can't it wait until after dinner? I'm telling you, it's not pleasant."

"You have me intrigued," he responded, only feeling slight guilt that he had such sway with her. He knew he could ask her for anything, and she would oblige.

She set her chopsticks down and palmed her face. "Might as well rip it off like a band-aid," she muttered.

He swallowed a bite of daikon; it was so flavorful the way Hiyori handled it and he didn't know how she did. Better than any restaurant or street stand he'd ever been to.

"You asked about the Uchiha coup and if we had ever lost. Well, I wasn't speaking just to hear my own voice, and I was prefacing everything else I'm about to tell you." She released a hefty sigh and groaned into her hands. "Ugh. Why is it _me_ that has to tell you?"

"Because you're the only one I trust."

She looked up, a playful scowl on her sweet face. "I see what you're doing Sasuke, you gremlin. And it's working, you absolute menace."

He smirked, almost even laughing at her odd word choice. He had next to no clue what a gremlin even was.

Another sigh stole Hiyori's breath. "What I'm about to say is actually illegal to talk about, so no repeating what I say to anyone. It's about the day the kyuubi attacked a few years back. You see, it's because Madara was once able to control the beast, it's been said that one of our own was the mastermind behind the plot, since it's only ever been an Uchiha who could control the actions of a tailed beasts, rather than simply seal it like the Uzumaki. There was conspiracy that it wasn't just an accident like the story that's been given to us says it was."

His brows furrowed, so far this wasn't too bad.

It did explain why when he was little so many of the older folk had treated him coldly, why there had been a hesitancy in his interactions with the other kids his age. There was always this weird atmosphere involved when he was socializing with those outside of his clan. He'd chalked it up to a line drawn in the sand and left it at that. But then the way people treated him changed after his family died. When he and Hiyori walked through the streets, neither of them were met with narrowed eyes or faces of distrust. No, there was always this sense of pity when they handed them free food or waived the charge of meals when they ate out.

"But we didn't right? Our family had nothing to do with it."

Hiyori looked down at her food, and took a moment to chew before replying. She surprised him when she said, "Who knows."

"What do you mean?"

"It's certainly plausible. I wouldn't rule it out that it _was_ a member of our clan, or someone who had been. It's rare for us to have deserters, but there have been a few in the past. You never know what may come out of the woodworks. With that being said, if it was, there was a desire for revenge on our clan in all likeliness since we have inevitably paid the price for it. Perhaps it was Madara himself come back from the grave to wreak vengeance upon us for having failed and exiled him. We did betray him first."

"You didn't say that, you said he left."

She blushed. "We may or not have kicked him out before he did that. There were lots of differing opinions back then and he had fallen out of favor."

Sasuke took another bite. The point was moot. "Either way he's dead."

"Yup." She swallowed a sip of tea. "As I was saying though, it's because of this distrust between us and the village, and the fact that though our clan had a major part in creating it, we have hardly ever been given any real say into real matters, that eventually we did start to form a coup." She clenched her jaw, the muscle in her cheek bouncing.

"And this was recent?"

"It was probably being planned for years. As I'm a civilian, I was never really involved. All I know is by word of mouth, but it might have started the planning stages exactly three years after the kyuubi attack. Our clan had had enough of being treated like dirt, like the dogs of the military. It was our place to protect the village because of our strength, but not an ounce of it was ever really acknowledged. You can well remember what that was like." Her brows suddenly furrowed, her eyes gaining a faraway look. "It's so strange, I haven't ever really noticed how alike you both truly are. In your backgrounds at least."

"Who?"

"Na—" She blinked, focusing on him and coughing. "Nobody important. _Anyways_ , the coup."

Hiyori's sadness streaked across her face, her lips drawing downwards and her eyes dropping to her plate.

"What happened?" Sasuke asked, suddenly feeling apprehensive. He wasn't sure if he actually wanted to hear. Something about her expression was warning him to turn back, to turn back right then because nothing good could come from this revelation. Ignorance was bliss. But he was so tired of not understanding, of not knowing why his family was killed that this was the first time he felt like he might receive that answer.

There were so many things he'd assumed, but it wasn't until that night he'd dreamed of Hiyori's death that and that she explained Itachi might have had a reason that'd he'd began to wonder himself.

Hiyori looked up at him, "Promise me, Sasuke, you won't do anything rash when you I tell you. And know I didn't keep this from you because I don't trust you, or that I wished to lie to you. There has never been a good time to explain what I'm pretty sure happened for all this to come about. _Now_ isn't a good time, we're eating! But I know that if I were in your shoes, I too would wish to know. Just so I could at least know."

He swallowed, trying to eat as casually as he could under the intensity of her gaze.

When she ripped up the proverbial band-aid, it was not gently.

"I'm pretty sure Itachi was under orders from Shimura Danzo to take care of us permanently so that the Uchiha wouldn't all rise up as one to destroy the village."

The food in his mouth seemed to go down about as easily as the ashes of his family would.

* * *

 **物の哀れ**

* * *

Yuri regretted it as soon as she said it.

 _I shouldn't have told him, I shouldn't have told him. I shouldn't have told him,_ echoed in her head as her heart picked up in pace. It had been a mistake. A complete mistake!

Sasuke vomited over their meal, and as he wiped his mouth and tried to take in air, he continued to choke. His eyes were wide, and flickering between the crimson of the sharingan and the darkest color of black. She was by his side immediately, her heart constricting as she spotted the tears budding at his eyelids. It was then she heard the tell tale wail of an infant and she grew conflicted.

She didn't know what to do!

It was situations like these where she remembered she was only seventeen, still just a child herself in many ways, and that she didn't really have the experience of life to fall back on when considering what direction to take. It was clear that she'd made a mistake, and was trapped in a world where she couldn't turn back time to where she'd never said anything at all. And she wished she never said anything at all!

She hated it! So much!

Sasuke fought to control his heaving, but waved her off in the direction of the crying infant when she started rubbing circles in his back. She blinked, realizing that even when his whole world was tilting on its axis and he was literally sick with the news, that he still had thought for someone else. She took in a deep breath and dashed for their bedroom, trying to fight for her own sense of calm.

Both babies cried in their crib, causing her anxiety to skyrocket. Calm her sons first, then Sasuke.

It was such a shift in priority that at first she just stood there, being slapped in the face with another realization that her priorities had indeed changed. No longer was it Sasuke above everyone, and instead her helpless infants had seemingly taken his place. She didn't like it in that moment. She wanted to comfort Sasuke, who to her was just as much as her child as Haruhi and Asahi.

But it'd probably help _him_ , if there wasn't crying infants in the apartment.

"Food?" she asked on a squeak, "Diaper change?" They of course couldn't answer, and kept crying. She picked them up, balancing the both of them on her hips, loathing her skinny arms when Haruhi slipped a little and she feared really dropping them.

Could Hiyori not have been a damn weightlifter?

She slid to the ground, just in case, placing her back against the crib. She checked their diapers first, no mess, then moved to pop out of her breasts. Perhaps it was feeding time, she certainly hadn't been paying attention to the clock. But neither of them would suckle when she tried, and yet they continued crying. She eventually set her clothes to straights, at a loss for what to do. Yuri grew frustrated, so much so that even she began to cry.

Could she not have a moment of peace?

"Why are you crying?" she asked her sons. "Don't you know you're making okaa-san cry, too?"

She tried rocking them against her, but nothing worked. It was so strange because they had usually been such well behaved babies. Were they sick? Did they not feel well? Or maybe they could feel the heaviness of the atmosphere themselves, and so cried for it to retreat.

"Okaa-san has a reason to cry," she sobbed. "What is yours?"

It was in the height of frustration that Sasuke came into the room, red rimmed eyes, with a set to his jaw. She hadn't expected him, and so when he walked in and wordlessly took Haruhi from her, she stopped her tears and blinked at him in worry. Still he said nothing as the both of them rocked the infants, until eventually, the two of them went into hard-fought slumbers, weary from whatever had aggrieved them.

Sasuke, she was beginning to see, was a real life magician.

* * *

 **物の哀れ**

* * *

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her after they set the twins into their crib and there was an even longer breadth of time to sit in silence. "I didn't think it'd effect me that much. I'm sorry I asked."

There was a haunted look to his eyes. She was right, the shine she'd seen placed there after the months she'd spent here trying to help him was extinguished. A piece of her died a pitiful death.

"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you."

"But I pressured you," he said, panic edging into his expression and voice. "You're terrible at denying me, and I used that."

"Sasuke, of course I find it difficult to say no to you, but don't mistake my softness for you as something of a weakness you can just manipulate. You can't. I have every ability to deny you when I wish. I _choose_ to tell you, not because you asked, but because I believed it might have been easier hearing it now when you were curious, than . . . I don't know, when you were a powerful shinobi in your own right and could make even greater mistakes."

"I vomited on our dinner," he deadpanned.

"And I'll clean it up."

"Already taken care of," he muttered, looking towards the wood floors.

"I used to vomit all the time," she said, hoping to add humor to alleviate the tension.

"You were pregnant. You had an excuse."

"What, are you ashamed of a weak stomach? There's so much you could do with it though. Nobody wants to be vomited on. If you ever feel the need, you can spew on an enemy shinobi and laugh as he tries to clean himself."

He looked up at her, "I see what you're trying to do."

She cocked her head, hopeful, "Is it working?"

He touched his chest. "I think it is."

There was a lull in conversation.

"It was my fault they cried, you know."

She frowned. "Now, what do _you_ mean?"

"Sometimes I forget you're a civilian."

She gaped, "How?"

"You're always so knowledgeable about stuff. It's almost like you have experience as a kunoichi."

She smiled, but a spike of nervousness hit her insides. She _hated_ lying to Sasuke, even if it was a lie of omission. It was why she always tried to be as truthful as she _could_ be. Which is why she said, "I'm well read, not experienced."

"Well I know _that_. Your footsteps can be heard twenty miles away."

Yuri scoffed. " _That's_ an exaggeration."

"It's in the basics when learning about chakra. There's something called killer intent, when a practitioner exudes a sightless form of chakra that creates a . . . I guess feeling that permeates the area around you. It's used to intimidate surrounding shinobi so they know not to mess with you if they're grunts and you're a bigger threat than they are. Sometimes it's even used to evaluate how much of a threat someone is."

"So you used this killer intent thing, and they felt that?"

Yuri was already aware of what KI was, but hadn't realized even pre-genin could use it. She had distinct recollections of Zabuza and how intimidating he had seemed to her child self when she'd grown up watching the show. The irony, she was starting to realize, was that she'd been raised with a microscope into this world and could sort of say she'd always grown up in it. Sort of. Not really.

Sasuke's cheeks reddened. "It was an accident . . ." It had probably taken a hit to his pride to say that.

"Don't worry, Sasuke. I understand."

She wondered, and not for the first time since the twins were born, how he would react to knowing she'd seen his brother recently. She was glad she hadn't gotten that far into her explanation. For now, Itachi was her dirty secret.

Yuri was sure he'd have more questions soon, and pondered how she'd go about answering him. He'd surely want to know more about this Shimura Danzo that had possibly ordered Itachi to kill the clan. She knew for sure he had, but she couldn't outright state she knew for sure. She would have to think about a reason why she would even be aware of it in the first place. Hiyori hadn't known crap about the coup, she'd lived in blissful ignorance. She must have been so confused when Itachi came at her with a knife. She rubbed the scar at her ribcage over her clothing. It was such a nasty scar she could feel the raised bumps of it in some places under the fabric.

Either way, she would have to do her best for him not to eventually go on a rampage to kill the village or something. She didn't believe he had it in him . . . okay, she thought of the great sum of samurai he'd murdered after Obito had told him the truth the first time around and pursed her lips.

No, no. That was different.

Sasuke had just killed his brother, had gone most of his adolescence hating Itachi with the sole desire to kill him so he could rid the world of a psychotic murderer, and had received the whiplash of a lifetime when the truth was revealed. He had thought of it as his duty to kill Itachi because he was the only one left alive with the drive and will to avenge his dead clansmen. He thought Itachi was a power hungry evil bastard, because that's how Itachi wanted him to view him. So Sasuke had became the avenger.

He had never purposely murdered an innocent, or even someone who was attacking him with the goal to kill him. It was because he wanted to be the complete opposite of his brother, wasn't it? He'd gone out of his way to leave people alive, it was his one rule his Team Hebi had to follow, not to kill. And it was only those as fucked up as Orochimaru and someone he perceived as evil like his brother that he'd ever permanently dispatched. Sasuke had a moral compass he rarely strayed from.

It was when he realized his brother had been a victim of circumstances, a victim of conflicting orders and a desire to protect the village, did he go into what could be considered a complete break down. That was when he murdered all those people.

A scene, she didn't know why it flashed there as it had been such a small one and not very noteworthy, hit her then. There was a group of shinobi, and they'd been praising "whoever" had killed Itachi. With a pinch to her heart, she wondered how much it would have hurt to hear that.

It was a wonder why Sasuke had never been a favorite of hers in the first place. Itachi had been at the time because she'd empathized with him greatly and his hard decision. It was only by coming here, feeling the effects of what that decision did personally, that a steady resentment for him had grown. She could still empathize with him, but it was Tomoharu's face, her parents faces, and her grandmothers that she saw that made it hard for her to forgive.

But Sasuke had never been someone she'd really . . . seen.

With a jolt, she looked at him. He was busy staring at the ceiling, slumped on the bed.

"You know, I saw your eyes flicker to the sharingan."

It was already unlocked. She recalled the meal they'd had where she'd told him maybe in his teens he'd unlock it, because she couldn't remember a time of him ever using it until the Wave Arc, though his feats in the Forbidden Forest were more memorable.

But, she thought, Sasuke had gained it during the massacre, hadn't he?

Sasuke looked at her with a frown, a slight sparkle coming to life at the mention. "Really?"

"Yes. I'm sure . . . what if you've already had it unlocked, and you just haven't noticed?"

He nodded, sitting up in a quick motion. "It would make sense. It was like seeing crystal clear for the first time and then seeing the world all hazy. It kept going back and forth. There was this hyperawareness, and then nothing. Huh," his lips drew up a bit. "I always figured everything would look red when it was activated, that I'd feel a draw on my chakra reserves, too."

She blinked. Hadn't she felt that before, too? The hyperawareness? She shook her head. That was when she was meeting Itachi for the first time. It'd make more sense if she'd just felt the effects of when Itachi had used _his_ sharingan on her.

Sasuke bit his lip in concentration. His onyx eyes fluttered red. "Am I doing it?"

Yuri chuckled. "Mhmm. It's all red."

He peered closer at her, the first sign of mischief she'd seen in his gaze. Strange it'd come on a day that's gone as it has.

"You know, you're really pretty with these things on." Onyx replaced crimson. Then crimson replaced onyx. There was a childish wonder in his gaze as he kept flicking it back and forth, on and off. Settling on red he said, "Yup, even prettier."

She smiled. "A girl is always pretty when she's with someone she loves."

He scowled. "You're smoother than I am."

"One day you'll thank me for all these one liners." And if it still ended up being Sakura who he loved, she hoped he'd put it to great use. She'd love seeing a sort of Road to Ninja Sasuke at work.

To her delight, Sasuke scoffed. "Not likely."

* * *

物の哀れ — mono no aware — lit. the pity of things. This is used as a phrase to appreciate the fleeting nature of beauty, the knowing that all things inevitably come to an end. There is a grief/misery in all things, be they people or objects, when they cease to be. That is the nature of being.

An extra long chapter because there was a lot to unpack, and you guys deserve it. Strange how long this chapter is though, given it's one conversation lol


	15. A Vague Unease

"We'll be fine," she insisted. "You should go tomorrow."

Sasuke felt his jaw tick. The last time he'd been in school and she'd been left alone, she'd gotten kidnapped. He couldn't help the anxiety of leaving Hiyori, not when she had his baby broth—cousins there all prone and vulnerable. He didn't like thinking like this, but he had been lucky she'd been taken when she had, seeing as he'd been able to simply miss the last few days at the Academy before it went into break. So he wasn't so behind the curve. But now that break was over, and he was conflicted.

He didn't _want_ to go, but it was necessary for his more important long term goal rather than the present at hand. Long term goal ultimately being keeping his cousins alive—because they kept dropping like flies—and doing _something_ about the state of the world. The thing that had lit his fire, so to speak, not too long ago had been to kill his brother. He had to reevaluate if that's what he still wanted.

He had to be sure when he did, because he didn't want to regret anything later on.

Either way, he simply couldn't stand that chafing feeling inside of him that things weren't right. He had to do _something_ , so he could get rid of it. He felt that once he did that, maybe he'd be able to breath again. Like maybe this world wouldn't seem like the hell it was anymore. He had to make things right. Somehow.

There was also the name Hiyori had told him he had to consider.

 _Shimura Danzo . . ._

Sasuke had to know his enemies, and he had to know how to take them down when the time came. As he was, he couldn't just go head to head with a rookie genin; he'd get his butt handed to him. Besides, he had more than himself to think about.

Soft, quiet music wafted around the room from the small stereo at their home theater in front of them. The television was off, the black screen reflecting their dark forms back at them, though parts of them were highlighted through the natural lighting. Sasuke peered at the morning sun streaking in through the windows, then at Haruhi and Asahi who were both sleeping in a bundle beside him on the couch, unbeknownst to his inner turmoil, or any turmoil at all. Haruhi's eyes popped open, sleepy at first before he blinked and yawned.

At once, Sasuke felt the anxious feeling in his chest wane. It was still there, but it was no longer this keen, nauseating sensation.

"I think it's time," Hiyori said, watching him from the other side of the twins. "I know what you said a while ago meant you wanted to take some time for just the four of us, but I think we have to think of the future."

He grumbled, "I thought you asking meant I had a choice."

"You do, we just both know what your choice is going to be."

He couldn't deny that.

"Okay, okay." He lifted a finger to poke at the baby's chubby cheek. Haruhi seemed to glare, his wide, dark eyes moving into slits of black beneath his eyelashes. That or he liked it. Sasuke couldn't tell. He sucked in a breath, "Can you stay home instead of walking me?"

He didn't look up to see her face, simply watched Haruhi gurgle out spit and move his mouth in the direction of Sasuke's finger as if to suck on it. He did not succeed. Sasuke moved his forefinger to the middle of the infant's forehead on instinct. Immediately, he dropped his hand.

"Why?" There was a pout in her voice. "You don't want us to see you off?"

He looked up, that tight feeling in his chest returning. It was starting to become as familiar to him as Hiyori herself. "I don't want you leaving the apartment, period. What if—"

"Sasuke, we can't continue to be paranoid." He watched her blow a strand of hair from her face. "I've been there, done that. So it's scary? But that doesn't mean we can just stop living. I have errands to run, supplies for the twins to get. And no, I'm not waiting for you to come home to do it with you."

"Don't be stupid, Yori. You can't protect yourself, and you're a bit too old to come with me to the Academy to learn. I'd rather you alive and here than kidnapped." As he said it, he realized he was sort of commanding her, a girl who was older than him and an adult, who had been taking care of him without any help for months now. He felt heat flood into his cheeks, expecting her to snap in anger.

Hiyori simply sighed, her brows drawn and her lips pursed. He'd forgotten how non confrontational she was, or more he rarely thought about it. In that moment he wondered if she'd left her backbone somewhere in the past and why she always seemed so . . . _understanding_. She never yelled at him, never complained, and that couldn't be normal? Could it? Before, he thought of that as a positive trait of hers, because he never had to fear her ire like he had with his parents, but now he was wondering if it was a character flaw instead.

He realized then, he actually _wanted_ her to get mad. He didn't know why, he just did. He wanted to see her shout, wanted to see her get riled up, wanted to see that she wasn't just this breeze that calmly went through life and just _took_ everything lying down. He wanted to know that what happened hadn't just effected him, that she had been just as scared and—so maybe he did know why, not that it was a good reason.

He wondered if people just reacted to trauma differently, or if Hiyori was just odd.

"I know this may scare you, to leave me on my own, but we have to move on from what happened sooner or later and I choose sooner," she said softly.

He stood up, incensed by her placating tone, fisting his hands at his sides, "How can you just _move_ on? You—you were _kidnapped!_ You! They could have killed you! You c-could've died!" What was left unsaid, but lodged in his throat was, _you could have left me._

And he sincerely didn't know what he'd do without her.

His relationship with Hiyori was the only good thing that came from his clan's genocide. He couldn't consider the twins a product of that, because they would have been born regardless, but this close bond he now had with her? It wouldn't have ever happened if it weren't for—

And now he felt like scum, guilty with the thoughts permeating in his head. He wished more than anything it had never happened, but at least he still had _her_. But what if one day came and he . . . didn't?

"Sasuke . . ."

Asahi grumbled, face pinching as he waved his arms about. Sasuke reached for his hand and shook it a bit; the effect was instant, the boy lit into tiny cheerful giggles. Haruhi on the other hand just looked bored, his face never changing expression.

"Doesn't that affect you? Aren't you as afraid as me?" He needed to know that he wasn't the weak one in all this. He was strong, right? Right? He dropped Asahi's tiny hand.

He didn't want to . . . _feel_ this way anymore, that stuffed sensation like at any moment he could just _burst_. There was just so much there in his chest and in his head that he had no clue how to organize, how to process. Thoughts and memories of his dear loved ones conflicting with what he knew now and what he remembered, that fateful night where everything changed for him, Hiyori being kidnapped, Hiyori telling him that his family had died most likely as a result of an order from an elder of the Konoha Councilmen. Knowing that there was no correct way of going forward. Fearing what the future looked like.

Everything was culminating and he just . . . what if he exploded? With a sense of panic rising in this throat and throughout his body, he realized he just might.

"Breathe," he heard from somewhere off in the distance, "Just breathe."

There was something warm pressed against him, and soft strokes running up and down his back. He felt the soft graze of someones nails, but they familiar and soothing. He found himself curled into Hiyori's lap, just like his mother used to do when he cried after Itachi would leave for training and eventually missions. The reminder brought tears to his eyes. He hated crying. Hated showing any weakness, but it seemed he would always be dependent on _someone._

But he wanted to be the one to protect them . . .

"We'll do it like this, we'll start slowly. I'll let you walk alone to class if that's what you want, and I'll always be waiting here when you return."

He pressed his face into the crook of Hiyori's shoulder, barely whispering, "Always?"

She didn't respond in words, she kissed him on the crown of his head, her silent adoration.

* * *

 **ぼんやりした不安**

* * *

Life resembled a story she'd read as a girl, one about a spider's thread sent by Buddha into Hell for the sake of a thieving man to see if he could climb up towards redemption. A spider's thread because in life while he had done nothing but steal from others making honest living, there was once a spider he spared while walking in the woods.

Buddha saw that as a sign he had some redeeming qualities after all, and so cast a single thread down to see if he had what it took to climb it, to claim his spot in Heaven. The man, Kandata, seized his chance and grabbed a hold of the thread. For what seemed like eons, he climbed until he was breathless with exhaustion. He nearly gave up until he looked to the bloody pool from whence he came and saw how close he really was to Heaven, to freedom wrapped in paradise. But as he continued, he also noticed the horde of sinners trailing behind him, trying to make their way up as well.

Fearing the snapping of the thread from the stressed weight, he yelled to his fellow sinners, "This is my thread, and mine alone!"

That was the moment it had snapped.

You could argue that it had indeed been the weight to snap the thread with perfect timing to sync with his selfish words, or you could take the lesson for what you will.

She remembered it viscerally because to her, life had been like digging herself up from underneath pounds of mud and dirt, all caked onto her until she couldn't see any openings out, so heavy it was almost the weight of concrete. She recalled one night staring at the pale ceiling in the bedroom she shared with four other girls in the same situation, wondering what she'd done to deserve her sentencing to the pool of blood, and if she received a spider's thread, if she wouldn't do the same as Kandata. She also wondered if it wouldn't have snapped either way no matter what Kandata had done.

Most of her thought it would have, knowing who the writer was.

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke. He killed himself at the age of 35.

The thing she remembered most about him as an author just from reading a short synopsis of him after she'd read a few of his other short stories, was that he'd been afraid of inheriting the madness inflicted on his mother after she'd given birth to him. Especially when he started having hallucinations of his own later in life. It must have been a certain kind of hell to live with that paranoia, to have watched it all unfold before and know that's what your own future could look like. Would. How absolutely terrifying.

A unique anguish.

Why she thought of it now, she couldn't say. Maybe she was wondering if this whole situation itself was something of a "spider's thread", and that however this world unfolded would be the ultimate decider between Hell and Heaven. A test. Or maybe she herself was simply apprehensive to the future. A vague insecurity for what it may be like. In his will, Akutagawa-sensei had said that he'd felt that.

Before her own passing, she'd felt something similar.

* * *

 **ぼんやりした不安**

* * *

" _Moon river, wider than a mile, I'm crossing you in style someday. . ,_ " she sang softly in English, rocking Asahi and watching as his eyes drifted shut and a small, gurgling smile grace his sweet face. " _Oh, dream maker, you heartbreaker, wherever you're going, I'm going your way._ "

She'd found the best way of dealing with her two infants was with music or sound in general. Lucky for them, she was a jukebox of songs of another world. A world she sometimes missed keenly. Mostly the entertainment aspect of it, to be honest. If it was one thing those in Earth did best, it was create new and enjoyable things to distract yourself from the insanity of mundane living. She'd have to wait for Boruto's generation before she could enjoy half the things she used to. It was like living in the 80s going on 90s mixed with the 2000s.

Though, now that she thought of it, was this place also called Earth, too?

More importantly, was she an alien?

"Okaa-san is an alien," she said when she noticed Asahi was firmly asleep. She carefully set him in his crib to be undisturbed, but blinked when she saw a silently judging Haruhi craning his neck around to peer up at her. "Haru-chan, don't tell Sasuke-nii-san, okay? It's a secret."

"Don't tell Sasuke what?" Sasuke asked as he came into the bedroom, looking not to be really paying attention to what was going on. In his hands was what looked like an ornate tanto colored in red and gold, but he was frowning at it as if he didn't know what to do with it.

"That I think you're the most handsomest boy around, and that you'll break hearts later on," she teased, curiously overlooking him.

He scowled, a look of irritation crossing his features. "Says you."

"Of course says me, although now that I think about it don't you break hearts already? I've seen the girls at the Academy. They go absolutely wild for you." She frowned. "It's a bit concerning."

A red flush crept into Sasuke's pale cheeks. Her smile returned, how adorable. "That's nothing. They're all just annoying and stupid anyways."

"Yeah, I guess you won't think of girls in any other way until way in the future," she mused. Speaking canonically, _way_ in the future. "Why are you just staring at that?"

After their morning talk, he'd decided to go on a short walk. Said he needed the air, and really, from the panic she'd seen in his eyes, she thought he needed it, too. They were a few days into the new semester, but there'd been no plans made for when he'd return. Now that she was an actual mother, she was starting to wonder if she needed to be more stricter with him to get him to go, seeing as she was also as much of a mom as Sasuke would ever have again. Dark, but it was the truth.

But Sasuke was a delicate child to work with—half the time she thought he might just burst into flames from his intense brooding—so there were times she didn't know how to deal with him. She didn't think he _wanted_ a replacement for his own mother, but she for sure knew he needed one. Still, she had to approach parenting him gently, right? Yuri didn't want to startle him. She'd hate if _she_ was the reason he went to Orochimaru.

Sometimes she wondered if she wasn't firm enough.

"Nii-san . . . I mean, Itachi gave it to me for my seventh birthday."

Yuri's eyes zoned in on the tanto with renewed interest, gingerly coming over to take them from him.

"I'm sorry your eighth was so lame," Yuri replied instead of discussing the obvious horse in the room.

Sasuke had spent his eighth in the hospital with her and the twins. It'd been a quiet day, although she'd been unable to bake him a cake or do any other festive thing, they'd shared some ice cream together and she had propositioned Nayu to order him books and assorted shinobi tools she thought he might like.

Nayu, being the goddess she was, had pulled through. Still, she couldn't help with think of the audacious clan affairs when it was either of the main houses birthdays and how they'd all gather around a bonfire and dance around while feasting on an obnoxious amount of food. She even remembered Sasuke's seventh birthday, and could see the mark dissonance of Sasuke of before and Sasuke after.

"I enjoyed it," Sasuke murmured with a frown. "I don't know what I want to do with it. It doesn't feel right keeping it but . . ."

"But you want to," she surmised.

"I want to get rid of it, too. I just—"

"I get it." And she did.

Yuri used to keep a necklace gifted to her from her father and mother on a day where they'd felt like a family, before her mother left to go back to America, her birth country. It was a souvenir from a festival they'd attended for the new year. Before everything went to complete shit. After everything happened, she hated her parents as much as she could without it hurting, but she kept it. They'd been the reason she'd ended up where she had . . . but, still she'd worn that necklace daily and somehow looking at the hard gem she was near certain was fake, had filled her with some drive to keep going. Until it hadn't.

"I think you should keep it," she murmured, looking at the fine work of the blade as she unsheathed it, noting it was a moroha tanto. There were normal tanto she'd seen and overlooked, and then there was . . . . this. She looked over the beautiful engravings and the red wrapping of the hilt, the gold of the pommel and . . . there was something familiar about it. Very familiar.

Yuri blinked. "Hey, I made this."

Sasuke, looking doubtful, asked, "You did?"

"Well, I—well not the blade, of course. But I did the etchings here and here," she pointed to the markings along the more blunt sides of the knife. Lines of ivy wrapped around from the ornate pommel over the red wrappings of the hilt until it reached the metal of the blade, seemingly reaching down the body of the knife. And within the wrappings, the uchiha crest done in gold and silver. She'd done the more intricate details on this particular moroha tanto, "I used to . . ."

Hiyori continued to surprise her the longer Yuri took her place. She supposed it took longer than 8 months for someone to remember someone's entire existence, and wondered how something so largely apart of Hiyori's life had been blindsided. Then again, most of what she knew of the girl she only found out when something happened around her that set a series of memories off in her head. Yuri was getting used to them now, and hardly felt guilty about being here, though sometimes that emotion did hit her when she least expected it.

"The blade itself is forged by my grandfather, Tojiro, on my mother's side. You do know she was an outsider, don't you? Amakuni was her families name and was a small clan from the Land of Iron. They came to this continent because they were shamed when my great-uncle, Tojiro's brother, Naga, committed treason against the shogun. Before that he'd been famed all throughout the land for his smithing. It was his fame and the shogun's fondness for the clan that he spared them all aside from my great-uncle, and sent them off."

Sasuke stared at her wide eyed and impressed.

"Why did you never mention this stuff?"

"Because . . . well it never came up. And I haven't spoken to Jii-chan in . . . close to a year now."

"Why, what happened?"

She sighed, just now remembering the argument she and Tojiro had gone through the day she told him she wasn't inviting him to the wedding. Silly, stupid argument, but it'd been one most of the clan had been adamant on. They didn't want outsider's in their borders, probably because by then they'd been so paranoid of them and only trusting of those who wore the same emblem as them.

"The elders told me to make sure he didn't come. They tolerated my mother's presence for the most part because my parents had eloped and really had no say in _their_ marriage, that and the times had been slightly different when they married. The climate was a bit more accepting as the Uchiha clan had been trying to build a greater reputation than what they'd had at the time. But when I was planning the wedding with Tomoharu they didn't really like the idea of Tojiro-jii-chan coming into the compound. So I told him and—well, I haven't spoke to him since."

Sasuke's face became inscrutable, as he took the kunai from her hands. He looked . . . confused, for the most part. Not terribly so, just questioning things in his head.

"So you have family aside from me," he said blandly.

Yuri blinked. Oh. Uh. Somehow, with the way he said it, the off note in his voice, she detected something wrong. She couldn't tell if it was jealousy that she still had a blood relative other than Sasuke himself and the twins, or confuddlement that she'd never told him.

She nearly groaned. This was the problem of possessing a life that didn't belong to her in the first place—she got into situations where she couldn't honestly tell the truth. That she really _hadn't_ thought she had anyone other than Sasuke. And it was really true, Hiyori's maternal grandfather wasn't _Yuri's_ grandfather, and she didn't think introducing herself to a man who would know Hiyori better than she did _as_ Hiyori would be a good thing.

"I'm not close with them, I never was. You know how strict the elders were about consorting with outsiders." True enough.

Hiyori's mother, Chie, had told her all about the difficult time she'd had even getting married. She had known Yuuto, Hiyori's father, was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with when the two had met when Yuuto had been in need of a new sword; his last one shattered to pieces when an enemy shinobi had gotten a good hit on him. Chie had been working with Tojiro, not as a full-fledged blacksmith but more as a jeweler who did all the engravings in ceremonial daggers and such, like Hiyori had once done. That or doing all the sanding and finishing touches.

Yuuto had been suitably impressed with the finished product, although he'd botched their first meeting by saying he knew someone who could do better. He'd been lying, but also talking of the Uchiha blacksmiths, who were all too swamped with work at the time to deal with his request quickly enough, so he'd had to outsource. Chie, unimpressed, had told him where to shove his opinion.

How on earth they'd managed to become a married couple was a mystery to her, because Chie had simply giggled coyly and looked at Yuuto with hearts in her eyes in response to such an inquiry.

Yuri sighed, feeling depression sink slowly into her.

"You should talk to him."

"I thought you said you didn't want me to leave the apartment?"

Sasuke's scowl deepened. "Not without me, I don't."

She was doubtful he'd do anything of substance against a real threat either way, but she remained silent on that. Not willing to argue more on that subject, she said, "So you want me to make up with him?"

"He's your family," Sasuke replied simply, as if that was all there was to it. She did notice the slight drooping of his shoulders though and had to wonder just what about this situation was making him so sad. "Just . . . don't leave me for him, okay?"

Yuri blinked in surprise at the statement. Did Sasuke have abandonment issues? She blinked again. Of course he did! What she was more surprised was that he'd voiced it. Sasuke didn't usually let his insecurities surface, and certainly never voiced it outright; everything about him was so repressed. But judging by the flush to his cheeks and the way he quickly looked away, he hadn't meant to say it outloud in the first place.

"Sasuke," she began levely and taking his shoulders into her hands, "I would never abandon you. I thought I made that clear from the beginning. You're . . . I hope you don't mind me saying this, but you're as much of a son to me as the twins are."

It was Sasuke's turn to look surprised. "I am?"

She nodded, knowing _this_ conversation was long overdue."I mean, I know I'll never be able to replace your real mother . . . but, we're in this life together, okay? We take care of each other, no matter what."

This time the reddening of his cheeks was accompanied by a smile that reminded her of a similar one she'd seen him wear long before the massacre. It was much broader than the ones he'd displayed recently.

"We both have to do things we're afraid of, it seems," she mused later that night as they prepared for bed. "I have to confront a mistake I made in the past and _you_ have to go to the Academy to prevent any mistakes you might make in the future. What a pair we make."

Sasuke scowled, curling into her and hiding his face away. "Don't remind me."

Yuri simply smiled into the dark.

* * *

ぼんやりした不安 — bonyari shita fuan — lit. a vague uneasiness/insecurity

For those who have been waiting for Sukea/Kakashi to come again, look forward to it in the next chapter! By the way I have such a hard on for Audrey Hepburn and her rendition of Moon River, so there. It has such a lullaby like texture to it, and sounded fitting to my ears. Also, Ryuunosuke Akutagawa is a real person and wrote lots of pretty awesome short stories before his passing; you've probably actually seen anime based off some of his work, like Kappa or even Kumo no Ito (The Spider's Thread) itself.

Thank you so much for last times reviews! Hope to see what you all think this time, as well!


	16. Seeking Happiness

" _Please, please, please," the girl moaned in his arms. His heartbeat pounded heavily within his chest in time with his steps as he ran full on away from the battle. His charge's life was a lot more important than getting in some kills for his Bingo Book._

 _She continued begging for something under her breath and he noted how tightly she wrapped her arms around her stomach. He got the impression she was praying for her child's life._

 _It was confirmed when she bucked in his arms and cried out in pain before clinging to him, sobbing out, "My_ baby, my baby. _"_

 _Then she started choking, her body stiffening and her jaw flattening and unclenching over and over again as she seeked air._

" _Breathe, Hiyori,_ Breathe, _" Kakashi insisted, holding her for all he was worth. It was a situation where his head wracked and he still wasn't sure what to do. Get her far enough for treatment, of course, but he had no clue how to treat a pregnant woman. He feared she was going to die in his arms._

 _He couldn't let her die. He simply couldn't. It wasn't just that he was in charge of her and that she'd be another strike against his oh so illustrious career if she did, it was . . . he kept picturing Uchiha Sasuke, and he kept imagining what that boy would be without her. He thought it'd be a lot similar to himself, and it_ terrified _him._

 _People he'd been responsible before flashed in his head, causing the spit in his mouth to thicken. He looked at the girl in his arms and saw too many people that had gone before her; those of which had been_ his _fault. Like this was and definitely would be if she kicked the bucket._

 _He simply couldn't let that happen._

 _His breath hitched as she looked up, charcoal eyes mixed in the dewy stardust of tears meeting his own flat and determined gaze._

Now is not the time _, he thought to himself, watching as her face gained this dreamy quality to it the longer she stared up at him, as if she could recognize him—Hatake Kakashi—from his mask alone. Had she seen his anbu mask before? He didn't think so._

" _Inu," she murmured so softly he barely heard her. Stupidly, because he clearly wasn't thinking straight, he thought the pain might have past and that she'd be okay with the way her face went lax. Almost immediately after the thought though, she went into a dead weight in his arms._

 _Instinctively, he knew this was_ not _good._

" _Fox! I_ really _need you!"_

 _He heard a crash to his right and dodged the onslaught of debris, kicking his legs into high gear and pooling his chakra predominantly into his feet so he wouldn't slip on the tree branches he ran on._

" _Over here!" he heard her call. Relief hit him hard right before cynicism and the assurety that she could still die did. He headed in the direction of Fox's voice, weaving and flowing past the trees until he came across his teammate and designated medic-nin. The woman stood in a ring of dead bodies, just sticking a man in the throat with a kunai as he came through the thick foliage. Luckily, that was the last to kill in the immediate vicinity._

 _She swiveled to meet him and gasped when she saw the young Uchiha girl, passed out and prone in his arms._

" _We have to get to a more sanitary place, quick," she said._

" _We're in the middle of the forest," he deadpanned._

" _Don't get smart with me. There's a cave system near here we can probably make use of. Do you know any medical jutsu?" He didn't see how that would be at all sanitary either, but at least there'd be cover. Beggars couldn't be choosers._

 _He thought of the girl who'd taught him medical jutsu and cringed, "A bit."_

 _Fox released a tight sigh as she led him around the area, scoping the low ground from the treelines until she saw a small mountain that could have just been an overgrown hill._

" _We'll have to make do with '_ Just a bit' _," Fox grumbled beneath her breath, her tone tetchy._

 _It appeared Fox was right as she peeled back the hanging of moss and other assorted plant life around a dark opening in the mountain's structure. It was bigger as they stepped in, their motions hurried and taut with tension._

 _The woman then reached into a pack she had on her back hip and fished out a scroll._

" _I had a feeling this might be needed," she explained as she unsealed the the contents within. A whole slew of things came out as she moved to quickly arrange the onslaught around them._

 _The first thing was a white blanket she threw on the ground. Kakashi gingerly set the Uchiha girl down, his hand reaching to feel the sluggish heartbeat on the inside of her wrist. He was out of practice, but he remembered the series of hand signs needed for the mystical palm technique. When his hands glowed green, he was unsure where to place them. Uncomfortably, he went for her rounded stomach._

" _You can sustain her, right?" Kakashi nodded, though he was uncertain. He concentrated on exacting his chakra and searching for the places within her that felt off or wrong, but the thing was_ everything _felt off. It was five minutes later that Hiyori's breathing stabilized and Fox had practically her whole hospital room set up that he handed the reigns to the_ actual _medic-nin._

 _Fox went through a series of vital testings through the use of various jutsu he followed with the use of his sharingan. Afterwards he quickly stuck his hand behind his anbu mask and dragged his hitai-ate to once again cover his eye. Already he felt the exhaustion of keeping it open for too long._

" _Not good," Fox murmured, and made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. "We're going to have to C-Section. I can't get the contractions to stop, he's coming right now and it'll be safer if we cut the baby out rather than prolong the labor. Hiyori won't make it that long. So, I'll need you to keep her stable."_

" _Of course," he replied, when really he was freaking out internally. Though he wore a mask, he kept his face carefully blank by habit._

 _It was thirty minutes later, in a moment of heart pounding nervousness and forced concentration, that the smell of blood thick in the air and the sounds of not one, but_ two _infants filled their surroundings. It took a moment for him to gather his bearings, as he kept blinking at the two babies and thinking about what he'd just saw._

 _Pregnancy, he surmised, wasn't a fun thing._

 _He'd never really ever seen a baby before. The first had been Naruto, but he'd always been too . . . there'd always been too much going on to ever pay much attention to the kid. Mostly, with himself. And now that he was older it hurt too much to see his face, so similar to his teacher, a man who'd been more of a father than his own. A shitty excuse, but the only one he really had. Hopefully he'd never have to live to encounter that particular demon of his._

 _Kakashi took a minute to just stare at the bundles he'd had to wrap up himself as Fox finished up with Hiyori._

 _This wasn't a situation he'd ever expected to find himself in—_

" _I need assistance, she's going into shock!"_

Kakashi jumped awake, his breath coming heavily through his nose. His hand found its way to his head of hair as he groaned from the headache forming there.

He didn't know if this dream of his was going to be added to his already horrific cycle of them, but he figured that yes it would as it'd been the second time this month he'd had it. He didn't know why he did. The rest of his usual nightmares were more understandable as they were closer to his heart and he'd been living with them for years.

This was just . . . he rubbed his face.

Kakashi wasn't usually one to sigh, but he did so now. He was glad he had woken up when he did— feeling Uchiha Hiyori's heart stop and her breathing cease had not been a grand experience. It would have been hell if she _had_ died. For him because he _knew_ he'd be haunted by it far more than he was now, and for the rest of the last surviving Uchiha clan members. He couldn't imagine the infants being very well taken care of in this godforsaken country.

Konoha wasn't known for being the best place for orphans, he could attest to that himself.

Still, at least this dream actually had a happy ending in real life. With a little luck, it'd last.

* * *

 **人間は、自分でそれを意識しているといないとにかかわらず、幸福を追求し続けています。**

* * *

She figured she should get it out of the way at the very least—talking to Hiyori's grandfather.

Feeling like if she didn't do it today that she'd never do it, she didn't go about her chores after Sasuke left for school with his petulant expression. She felt bad that he wasn't with her like he said he'd wanted to be, but she didn't think she could take it if Tojiro called her out on not being the real Hiyori and Sasuke finding out that way. Maybe she was just paranoid. Maybe she was being smart about this.

That, and Yuri had ripped off the band-aid for Sasuke, she thought she might as well do the same to herself. _It's going to hurt worse_ , she thought, _if this anxiousness continues._ Yuri was tired of feeling hurt.

She strongly disliked the idea of being a coward and coping out. So, dressing in a light summer yukata, Yuri readied herself to meet the man who had taught Hiyori how to work metal. Of course, Hiyori had never been interested in actually making the weapons themselves, but she'd liked the art of sanding, polishing and making it look beautiful to the eye. Final touches were her niche.

Samurai swords weren't very well received in this country of ninja's so a lot of what they'd worked on had been short blades and knives. Still, every so often Tojiro would heat the furnace with a vision he wanted to create, and he'd use Hiyori's eye for detail and ornate designs to do it.

Not wanting to use the carrier, Yuri wrapped her infants in a bundle of blankets and tightly tied them to herself, allowing them to hang and sleep on her chest as she made her way throughout the village. At least that was the idea.

When she came out of her apartment door, Kakashi dressed as Sukea was there opening his door as well. She knew it wasn't a coincidence—nothing with this man could be. Curiosity made her let it slide.

"Good morning, Sukea-san," Yuri said smoothly. Kakashi ruffled his brown hair and tipped his lips upwards. It was another smirk-smile.

"And good morning to you, too, Uchiha-san. Or may I call you Hiyori-chan?"

Yuri smiled politely. "We aren't that familiar."

"You called me Sukea," he pointed out with a playful pout. She'd have surely laughed if she'd seen Kakashi looking like himself do that. As it was, it simply annoyed her.

"You never gave me a last name," Yuri replied and stepped out of her door.

Asahi wiggled against her chest and made a happy baby giggle when the morning's sun peeked in through his lashes. He made as if he could catch it. Overwhelmed with how cute her son was she kissed him on the forehead, causing him to giggle again. Haruhi looked beseechingly at her as well, his eyes hooded and his mouth stuck in what she'd found was a perpetual frown. She kissed him as well, the boy snuggling in silently.

"That's true," Kakashi allowed, reminding her of his presence. "Are you going to the market? I need some things as well, so why don't we go together?"

Yuri looked up at the man, "If I get tired, will you hold one of them?" She asked because she was curious for his reaction, and strangely she actually trusted him with her infants. She really shouldn't—what experience did he have with babies? Or children really.

With more thought, she decided she _didn't_ trust him with the twins, at least not on a logical standpoint. Her instincts had always been odd, so she wouldn't trust it in this case.

Kakashi rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly before nodding, "Maa, of course."

"Well too bad, I'm not going to the market. I'm heading off towards Kajisato."

She didn't wait for him to reply, she turned her back on him and walked towards the entrance area of the apartment complex. She waved to the landlord, who reciprocated with one of his own and smiled at her sons.

It didn't take long for Kakashi to follow after her.

"What do you need in that part of town?" he asked, appearing beside her along the street.

"Nothing of your concern, perhaps I just need a sharp pair of kunai to shank busybodies with," she muttered, already annoyed with his presence. There was something about him being Sukea that just bothered her. If she talked to Kakashi, she wanted to be speaking to _him_ , not some OC he made up.

He chuckled lightly, "You don't mean that, Hiyori-chan. Now why there, really?"

She glanced at him, "Do you make a habit of following the women of your apartment complex around?"

He blinked. His answering smile was slow, "Of course not."

Frowning, she stopped on her path, "So it's just me? Don't you find that at all strange?"

Pausing beside her, he shrugged. "Wanting to get to know a pretty girl like you? Not really."

She was truly disappointed in Kakashi. She had thought better of him, she truly had. "I have two infant sons and I'm raising my eight year old cousin by myself. What makes you think any of this is okay?"

"What does any of that have to do with you being a pretty girl?" Kakashi winked, but the expression was unpracticed. She felt embarrassed _for_ him.

The frustrating part was that she knew all of this was an act. _I'm sure he's never had to go on a mission incognito if this is his whole shtick._ Which made sense for the socially inept guy, but hey, at least he knew ways to kill a man she couldn't even fathom.

Asahi broke the moment when he giggled while watching their back and forth.

"Cute kid," Kakashi mused.

She sent him a glare and started for her destination once more.

"Okay," he muttered matching her pace, "I know I'm going about this the wrong way. But I really do want to be your friend."

"Friend or _friend_?" The distinction was particularly important to her. _Ew, what if he's actually attracted to me?_ She pressed her lips together, displeased with the notion. It was a good thing she doubted it immensely. Kakashi just seemed so . . . untouchable.

He coughed, "That's a valid question, I suppose. Just normal friend, I assure you. I don't have very many of those."

"I can see why," she deadpanned.

"So cruel, Hiyori-chan," he said with faux affliction, clutching at his chest.

"A friend wouldn't lie to another friend."

"You have a point," he murmured. "I guess that means we're friends then since you didn't lie."

She stopped again, turned to stare at him head on and looked up at him through her lashes. She honestly considered letting him know what she thought of his _particular_ lie, but then . . . she also wanted to know how far he'd go with this persona of his. So instead of calling him out on his bullshit, she said politely, "You have a point as well," and amicably continued on her way. She was lying just as much as he was with that sentence.

She supposed it meant they weren't actually friends. What a damn shame, _surely._

"So why Kajisato?" he asked like the annoying bug he was.

"I thought you had to head to the market," she reminded him.

"I do, but that can wait. I'm more curious why a civilian carrying two infants around wants to go to Kajisato, a smithing district. Can't be too safe for them."

"And I told you. I truly want a kunai to shank busybodies, especially now. As for the boys, I can't well leave them at home, now can I?"

"You could hire a nanny?"

She wanted to say, _in this economy?_ but decided to try a bit of honesty. "If you haven't been able to tell, I'm an Uchiha. It's in my blood to be distrustful of others. I'd never hire one."

"Can't really fault you for that."

She said nothing, turning onto a busy street. Shinobi and civilians alike all peppered their surroundings. She felt more secure with them there, knowing it'd be harder for her to be snatched in this situation. Actually . . . now she was just grateful Kakashi-Sukea was accompanying her. She realized she actually felt safe with him there, and maybe that was why she wasn't a nervous wreck leaving the house. It gave her a conflicted feeling—on one hand, she wasn't paranoid at the moment, and on the other, she found him quite annoying.

She surprised herself by saying, "If you must know, I'm heading off to see my grandfather. He works around there."

If he fucked up the rest of this day for her, she'd attempt to castrate him—attempt because it couldn't be done, especially from one as weak as her, but she'd certainly damn well try.

Kakashi nodded, as if it made sense but his eyes were a bit too wide for her not to think she hadn't taken him back. She, of course, had been in the same boat of thinking she had no other relatives besides the Uchiha clan, even when she knew her mother had been an outsider. Yuri was also a tad bit naive it seemed.

"I can escort you, Hiyori-chan, if you'd like." He looked so hopeful, as if by giving this to him she'd be giving him a million yen. The expression looked fake to her, making her nearly rule him out completely. But Kakashi was hardly ever real even to himself, perhaps he just wasn't used to being genuine. It was not a strike in his favor.

She side eyed him, considering him. "Escort me to where I can find a baby stroller to fit twins, and I suppose I'll allow you to take me to my grandfather." There. Her flimsy arms had been getting tired already.

He smiled and she pretended it didn't cause a riot in her stomach—be it nauseousness or flutters, she wasn't sure. Either way she hated the feeling. There was this terrible foreboding within her in that moment. Whether it was for good or bad, she couldn't say. It just was.

* * *

 **人間は、自分でそれを意識しているといないとにかかわらず、幸福を追求し続けています。**

* * *

"No, I'm drawing the line right here," Yuri said with great assertiveness. "You can't just pay for this for me. It makes no sense, and they aren't your kids."

Kakashi ignored her, handing the bills to pay for the stroller over to the clerk in the store. Conflicted, but seemingly more wanting to get it over with, said clerk accepted the money. When it was all said and done, the carriage assembled and ready to set the sleeping babies into it, she glared at Kakashi the entire time until they left the shop.

"No, I want to push them," Kakashi said almost childishly. Yuri scoffed. "I bought it, I want to try it first."

She had to hold herself back from actually hitting him in his cheeky face.

It's not like she didn't have the money to pay for everything, even unemployed, so why he did this just didn't make a lick of sense to her. She considered his motive and found herself suspicious. But what on earth was he doing? What made him do half the things he was doing now? Was it impulse control issues? Did he just want to do it and it was simply that? Or was there some broader, long term goal for him in mind?

She swore if he had a mission to infiltrate her family and gain her trust through manipulative means he would find poison in a nice cup of tea. Whether it was lethal or nonlethal depended on how pissed she was if she found out. Was she just blowing things out of proportion? Most likely. Either way, she didn't trust it. People weren't nice without a reason.

Yuri was still glaring at him by the time they reached the smithing district of Kajisato, by that point his smile had annoyed her to silence while he tried to fill it with inane things that didn't matter—half of which she'd already forgotten in the depths of the past.

"Consider it a gift for a job well done," he said when it seemed she'd just continue with her stony silence.

She clenched her jaw. What peeved her the most was that she had no idea how she should feel about her current situation. He was taking charge and a part of her—deep rooted it may be—liked the idea of being taken care of now that there was no one in this world or the next to do just that. It spoke to a fantasy of hers from young, to be cared after.

But that didn't mean she had to actually like it when it was done. If he'd been his actual self of Hatake Kakashi that would be one thing, but again, she didn't like that he felt the need to hide behind the mask of a different face.

In some ways, she did understand. Kakashi had fucked up and she had his image in mind for one of the anbu looking after her, and yet she'd been kidnapped anyways. But he was being a coward by not confronting her about it, or even apologizing to her first hand.

"Hmph," she murmured and looked away as they walked, listening to the sounds of the carriages wheels on gravel instead.

"You're such a tsun. So cute."

She whipped her head in his direction and sent him a scathing glare.

"See? How adorable," he chuckled.

She didn't know where he got it in his head to be so familiar with her, but she didn't appreciate it.

But then . . . what if he _was_ being genuine, and he was actually trying to be nice to her? Was it her bias and general dislike for men coming into play and coloring these interactions with the man? Or was it that she was simply seeing the worst case scenario in every facet of life?

Yuri may preach about living and not letting paranoia get in the way of doing just that to Sasuke, but execution was far more difficult than saying words. It didn't matter that she was tired of this victim mentality she was stuck in, of finding a little boogeyman in every corner and shadow; it wasn't something that could be turned off with a switch.

She deflated. Maybe she was the one being a bitch.

So forgetting what he'd just said she murmured in an aggravated tone, "Thank you for paying for the carriage, though I expressly asked you not to, therefore undermining my role as caregiver to my infant sons, but, you know, thanks."

"And there's the dere," he told her, catching Yuri off guard. It was right then she despised her tendency to live in her own head for moments at a time as the flow of the conversation came back to her.

"I am _not_ a tsundere. I'm just—ah, we missed it, turn around." She eyed the weapons shops all around her, hit with a sense of culture shock with how many there were. She should have expected it, especially with Hiyori's memories as well as knowing just _where_ she was, but it surprised her. Japan was just so different to this place sometimes, despite the shared culture in some instances.

They circled back, keeping their eyes peeled for the Amakuni crest which was the depiction of a star, though more aptly a meteorite. They'd received it after someone in her ancestry had fashioned an unbreakable blade made from the rocks hurled from what she knew to be space and what they thought to be the heavens. This wasn't really normal, seeing as blades forged from meteorites tended to be more brittle with the mineral composition weakening the bondings of the metal itself. Still, somehow they'd done it and it had still not broken after thousands of years of battle. Apparently this famed sword was still even used by today's shogun.

How she knew this stuff she credited to her host body and left it at that.

"There," she murmured, pointing at the shops sign. Nervousness exploded from within her, subconsciously making her stick closer to Kakashi.

 _If he sees me, he'll know. He'll know I'm not her._

Yuri fervently wished not to see that betrayal on his aged face.

"Why are you so nervous?" Kakashi asked curiously, the two of them paused just to the side of the building. Shinobi of all ages milled around them, eying them both curiously, though her more so. She wondered if any of them had known Hiyori as well. In fact, wasn't it strange how she had no friends? No one had come to her when she'd been in the hospital, two times in a row, but especially the first time when it'd been more high profile.

Yuri couldn't recall from the well of Hiyori's memories if there had ever been anyone outside of her clan whom she'd cherished enough to call friend.

She clenched her fists.

Why hadn't Tojiro come himself?

"Many reasons," she told Kakashi, an answer to his question. She heaved in a breath, wondering if this was too soon for her, or if she really should have waited for Sasuke to do this. Then she'd have a support system she actually trusted.

She looked at her sons, almost wishing for them both to make a fuss so she'd have an excuse not to come. They stayed woefully silent, dreaming of whatever it was babies dreamed.

 _You can do this_ , she thought to herself. _Tomoharu would be laughing his ass off at you for your cowardice!_ Dismayed by that thought she nodded to herself. She could, in fact, do this.

Turning to Kakashi she levelled him with a look, "Can you wait out here with my sons? Can I trust you to do that?"

He nodded, suddenly solemn. "Of course."

She released a small breath of relief. If he'd been anything but serious she'd have assuredly hit him and probably would have walked away. "Thank you."

Composing herself once more, Yuri bent over the carriage to kiss her sons cheeks, looking at them for courage. With another breath exhaled, she then stood up straight and strutted past the hanging white cloth at the entrance to the store front. She was greeted by the familiar sight and smell of the shop, nostalgia hitting her hard as she looked around.

It was a small shop, all things considered, but most of Amakuni Tojiro's profit came from commissions, those he didn't make available to the public. What could be seen here in the front were katanas and various types of tonto's and kunai sets all hung up and on display. It smelled like leather burning wood, and the forge when it was hottest. She closed her eyes, reaching for those fond memories Hiyori had, hoping it would make her nervousness a thing of the past.

When that didn't work, she clenched her hands together in front of her, praying she wouldn't be found out to be a fraud and unsure how she'd feel if Tojiro actually couldn't tell the difference. She was so busy fretting that she jumped the moment she felt something touch her shoulder.

Vivid colors and the sharp lines of the world around her intensified as something clicked within her. She blinked her eyes, the effect strange and discombobulating, nearly causing her to trip over herself as she spun in her haste to see what touched her.

Eyes wide open and clutching at her chest, she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Hiyori's grandfather gazing at her with an indiscernible expression.

"You scared me," she muttered, taking him in.

He looked older than she remembered with weathered skin that crinkled all around his face like paper that had been folded too many times over, and white hair that no longer held the peppered richly dark blue hair it'd once been. His mouth was drawn down in a frown, the sagging of his cheeks over his jowls dramatising what appeared to be a growing confused look. His blue eyes, which had always had this stern, unrelenting quality now looked simply soft. As if he was this sweet old man and not the frigid one that was often as hard as his steel.

"Your eyes," he murmured and reached out for her. Yuri bit her lip, unsure of the situation she'd placed herself in and what he meant about her—"I'd hoped to never see that crimson on you."

She blinked, confusing over sweeping her. She hoped he wasn't going addled, Yuri was certain she wouldn't be able to take care of an ailing grandfather _and_ raise her children all by herself.

He withdrew himself, a heavy sadness in his gaze as he looked at her. "Was the price for those eyes great?"

Yuri wasn't sure what he meant . . . until she saw herself in the reflection of a particularly shiny katana displayed right beside her. She was a smudge of colors, the black of her hair and the paleness of her skin but . . . there was a deep redness where there should have been black.

Not wanting to consider the possibility of the sharingan and how that made her a double target, she sucked in a tight breath and asked the first thing that came to mind, "Why didn't you visit? Why didn't you come?"

It was such an awkward situation and might have been made it worse when she continued, all of these feelings that she couldn't have released throughout the year hitting her at once. "Why didn't you? I needed you . . . I needed someone to be by my side and help but all I had was a seven year old that needed me to be strong and it was so difficult! So why didn't you come?"

It didn't matter that it would have been worse if he'd been there, given her particular situation, but it certainly could have been better, too. Yuri was frustrated, sincerely upset that Tojiro hadn't cared enough to be there for Hiyori, even if Hiyori was still technically dead. It galled at her, a girl who knew true love now thanks to Hiyori's existence, and for someone not to love her as much as she did made no sense.

Memories served to show her that he'd been a stern man, but at least he'd shown he'd cared for her a time or two. He'd taught her so many things, but had he been too upset about the wedding that he refused to see her after her entire clan had been murdered? Had he been so scared to approach her?

What about her made men become cowards that they couldn't look her in the face properly and . . . and do what needed to be done!?

And now _she_ felt like a bad guy because Hiyori's grandfather looked like this sad old man and he looked so chastised in that moment. His weathered face looked even more beaten as her words landed their mark. He shook his head in sadness and reached for the hands shaking in front of her. She shut her eyes and tightened them for a moment, uneasy with the unfamiliar touch, and when she looked back up the increased sense of awareness dissipated. Sight returned to normal and she no longer felt so overwhelmed.

"I didn't think you'd want me to be there," he said simply. It made her want to hit something. Had she always been so violently inclined? "And I couldn't stand being around anyone for a time. I'm glad you've been raised far braver than I."

She sucked in a breath and all her pent up anger flushed away, though she wondered when she'd actually implode and what it'd feel like. Cathartic, she hoped.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he murmured when the silence became overbearing. Is that what family told one another when other family members died? But she could see it in him, too, the mark of grief.

"It was kaa-chan, too, you know. And tou-chan, but kaa-chan as well." Tears lined the lids of her eyes and she bit her lip to keep herself in check. "You . . . I'm sorry for your loss, too."

He lead her by the hand to the backroom where tea and meals were served and guided her to the zabuton that sat just on the side of a low table. He went to the other side and took a seat.

"Kaito!" he called, his voice going hoarse before he started a round of coughing. She looked on at him with worry as a young man came waltzing into the room. She looked up and frowned, not recognizing him. "Get me and my granddaughter some tea will you?"

The young man, Kaito, saluted Tojiro and winked at her. "Of course. You know I was just cutting the billet with Sora, but I'm always down to serve a pretty girl." Ugh. She'd just escaped Kakashi's lame OC, now she had to deal with—

"Jii-chan, you distracted me!"

He frowned, "From what?"

"Oh, I'm such a bad mother . . ," she muttered to herself and then to him, "I have two sons I'd like you to meet. They're three months old but they were premature and are just now catching up to where they should have been when I _should_ have given birth, but things happened and now—"

"Hiyori, pause for just a moment."

She did, taking in a deep breath. "I gave birth to two boys. They're outside with . . ." Oh, how to explain Kakashi?

But she didn't need to say anymore, Hiyori's grandfather jumped up as spry as he could be, Kaito and her gaping at him as he did so, and hauled her to her feet with all the muscles hammering for long hours did to arms.

They all left quickly to the front and to the outside, a curious Kaito following after them.

When they parted the white drapery in the front they saw Kakashi dressed as Sukea holding one of her infants, and from the looks of it, playing with him. A smile bubbled from within her watching him bounce the baby in his arm and make funny faces at the baby. Too bad he halted as they stepped outside, and a pink blush rose around his cheeks, a sheepish expression crossing his features.

She hated that she actually found it attractive. She pinched herself.

"Yo," he greeted.

"And who is this?" Tojiro asked, gesturing to the baby in Kakashi's arms. He reached to grab hold of him and Kakashi, looking unsure at first, obliged the old man.

"Asahi," she said and came around the baby carriage to pick up the second half to the pair. "And this one is Haruhi, he's the oldest."

"Ah, for his father and mother, I see," Tojiro murmured and then crooned at his great-grandson. "He looks just like you when you were born, Hiyori. All this head of hair and that smile. He doesn't have a clue what's going on and still he's smiling."

Her chest hurt as his voice became strained. Her grandfather faced her, patting Asahi on the back. There were tears in his eyes as well. "Job well done, my dear, job well done."

It was bittersweet, his words and the breaking of the note at the end.

* * *

人間は、自分でそれを意識しているといないとにかかわらず、幸福を追求し続けています。 — Ningen wa, jibun de sore o ishiki shite iru to inai to ni kakawarazu, koufuku o tsuikyuu shi tsudzukete imasu. — Human beings, whether they realize it or not, continually seek happiness.

Hope you guys like the cover I drew for the story! This chapter fought me as I wrote it, but I think it came out okay. Hope ya'll still dig it! Lemme know what you think c:


	17. To Count A Dead Child's Years

"So, am I to presume this young man you've brought with you is a paramore of sorts? I must say I'm glad you've moved on; given the circumstances, the boys will need a father figure and I fear I'm not that lively anymore to be of much use in that department. I can't offer much." His chuckle was deep, unassuming though it was clear he was fishing for info on Kakashi.

They sat in the shop's tea room enjoying crackers and hot tea, just the two of them and the babies while Kakashi occupied the store front overlooking their weapons. She didn't know if he had any real interest in the swords and knives, but he made the excuse that he was giving her and Tojiro some time alone. Which would be nice if she wasn't also so sure he wasn't listening in on them.

Yuri was taken aback, a blush heating her cheeks. Of course, she realized how it must look to her grandfather, being accompanied by a strange man but . . .

"Oh, no! He's just my neighbor. He didn't want me to walk alone with two infants is all," she hastened to say and then offered him a small smile. "As for you not being enough, don't cheapen yourself that way. I'm sure you have decades more with us."

"Yes," he replied gravely, "and what a curse for you to bare, I'm sure."

"Nonsense," she chuckled, feeling the normalcy of it all settle her.

It used to put her off, the mundane things, things like joking idly used to irritate her to no end, but now they simply enlivened her. It also caught her off guard, and she wondered if it was a flaw to her character that she could act the way she did and continue to trick those around her. Hiyori's memories the tools of her trade. She felt slightly off with the reminder that she was still just a dead girl possessing another dead girl, playing in said girls place . . . but none of what she ever said or did came with the intent to do harm. Did that at all make it okay?

She'd made the decision long ago that she couldn't tell anybody the truth, but if she were honest, like a disease, it continued to eat at her. It felt like another cage to replace the one she'd left.

 _He hasn't noted it yet_ , she thought. _And maybe he never will. It's not like my behavioural change can't be chalked down to the many changes in Hiyori's life and the trauma she faced before she passed. I don't know if that's a good thing, that they can't really see her and instead it's me. And what a paltry substitute that is._

She watched with an emotion stuck there in her stomach, Tojiro bouncing Asahi in his lap and smiling widely with the baby who giggled with him. She adjusted her grip on Haruhi, who snoozed into her chest, his weight heavy and comforting. He made a soft gurgle when she brought him closer.

"Again, I'm glad you came by," he said and the hearty man whom all Hiyori's childhood had always been too proud and good to show much of himself smiled broadly. "I'll try my best to get my head out of my—" he looked at the baby in his arms. "Butt, and meet more with you. Are you still in the compound?"

"No, I'm in an apartment complex . . ." she began and went on to describe much of the events of the months, leaving out the kidnapping and instead focusing on the more positive aspects of life. It was around three in the afternoon that she stopped. Her voice was slightly hoarse from talking so much, and though Tojiro didn't often comment, more he listened raptly when he wasn't holding either of the babies, she felt a connection and solidarity . By the end of her visit, she felt lighter despite the quiet unease with herself.

She simply couldn't help imagining the world where Hiyori was still Hiyori and Yuriko wasn't anything at all. Or . . . what Yuriko would have been if she continued to live that hellish life she had before, if she had continued to be stubborn well into her tenure, and if she had dug in her heels and grasped life in her hands with the viciousness of a wolf. That is until a very different, but very real fate befell her as all eventualities did.

The image of such an end that she pictured was a familiar one, and one she fervently wished to forget. It was the sightless eyes of a nightmare, and it was not at all pretty.

* * *

 **死んだ子の年を数える**

* * *

They might be small, but there were two of them and that made them all the more heavier. _Man, I need to workout or something, I have next to no muscles,_ she lamented as she hefted her youngest son into the stroller.

Asahi giggled at her strained face, the little butt. Haruhi on the other hand was an angel, lazily watching the clouds above her from his vantage point in the carrier.

She'd noticed that even this young they'd demonstrated differing personalities, which surprised her given she had known next to nothing about babies until she had two of them. Books were one thing. Real children, completely another.

Asahi, she'd found, was the happy giggly baby, but more fussy and clingy while Haruhi was more relaxed and cool, his face hardly changing expression, although he still looked pretty happy in his own way. Sometimes he'd smile, but it was a rare thing. He simply looked content, much like a Nara. Her children, breaking stereotypes.

"When you have a child of your own, I will remind you of every embarrassing thing you did to me," Yuri informed the giggling baby, to which Asahi released another happy baby laugh. She softened. "Okay, maybe not. You're cute."

After they were all situated she lifted a fabric attached to the carrier up and over the twins so they didn't get burnt. As it was, she was sweating from the heat, and hoping for winter to come early though she wasn't looking forward to the anniversary of the Uchiha's death. Yeah, not something she wanted to think about. Her mind strayed to other things.

It had been a few days since her initial visit with her grandfather, and since then a few things had changed. For one thing she visited the man fairly often, although Kakashi hadn't accompanied her in person since the last time. Sasuke on other hand still had school and self implemented training after school, so he planned to meet Tojiro on the weekend. That is, after he got over his irritation of her having gone without him.

Sasuke still went off to school with a pinched expression, but he did it, and that's all she could ask for. So now, by the time lunch had come around, Yuri had found herself bored. She could tell her children were bored as well all cramped inside all day. Or maybe she was just seeing what she wanted to see as an excuse to leave the house.

It was strange though, being outside used to fill her with this muted paranoia, never knowing when someone would attack or not. And it still did, but not as much as before, weirdly enough. What was odder was her reaction to being kidnapped and with her history, the fact she didn't completely go back to that manic, depressed individual she had been. She had off days, of course, but so did every other person in all the worlds. It was very encouraging to know she could keep a level head about herself even after such a bad time. And she didn't even need the silver haired devil in disguise around.

It was knowing what could happen at any given moment that gave her the confidence to keep a stricter look out, as well knowing that there was always hope she could come back even if the worst did happen.

Looking back, there were so many things she'd experienced that really should have killed her, especially as herself, that really should have made her a husk of a person, and yet it was a decision of her own that had really done her in.

Although she wasn't sure if she wasn't just repressing her initial reaction and that it'd bite her in the ass sooner or later.

Knowing her luck, it probably would. She didn't have a good track record with repressing her emotions and coping in healthy ways.

"Do you need help, young lady?" An older woman asked her as she crossed into the shopping district.

Yuri bowed in greeting as the woman bounded towards her with a polite expression on her face. She looked plain and usual, with her dark wood bark hair and even darker eyes, but there was something elegant about her and the way she walked.

"Uh . . ." Yuri flushed. "Is there any place for children toys around here?" It was a throwaway question, but it wasn't until it left her mouth that she realized she'd actually like to know.

"Ah, don't you have anybody to help you? Poor thing," the woman crooned before her eyes grazed the Uchiha emblem printed on the collar of her yukata. She lifted her hand to her mouth for a second as surprise flashed, and then the deeper emotion of pity.

Yuri ignored it, as she always did, the initial reaction of the villagers. It did save her from answering the woman's question, as the woman already knew.

It was slightly awkward before Yuri reiterated her question, "Children's toys? Is there a store for them?" She hadn't found any thus far, and her pregnancy had felt quite quick since she'd discovered it late. She'd only really had a few months to really prepare and . . . well she wasn't prepared at all.

"I'd try the Toyoku district."

Yuri frowned, "And where is that?"

"It's in the northern part of Konoha. About a thirty minute walk. Here, I can give you some water so you don't get sick in this heat. You look like you're still recovering, huh?"

She nodded, sweat perspiring along her upper lip. Her bangs were probably plastered to her forehead. The woman leaned over the carrier and made a funny face at the boys. Haruhi watched her impassively. Asahi laughed and kicked his legs out.

"Just a bit," Yuri replied, unsure of herself in this conversation. "It was a complicated birth."

"I see," the woman hummed and walked into her shop. Yuri waited outside in the sun with great hesitance. Should she follow . . . ?

When she came back, the woman was carrying what looked like a sheet of paper and a cup of water.

"You can come inside and rest a bit if you'd like. I'll just write down the directions for you."

Yuri nodded, slowly making her way inside. The moment she was in was a great relief; it was a general convenience store of sorts with what looked like a small sitting area on the inside and had air conditioners pouring in cooled air from all around. She headed towards the sitting area, taking the glass of water with gratitude.

"Thank you so much," Yuri murmured, setting the baby carrier beside her on the bench.

"It's not an issue, dear. It's been hot these days, and we should all do our best to look out for each other."

Smiling slightly, she nodded her head. "Agreed." She took a sip of chilled water, then drank her fill before dipping her finger into the cup and dabbing a bit of it on her babies cheeks and foreheads.

"They're very cute," the woman noted from behind the cash register where she was scribbling on the paper. "They take greatly after you."

Yuri idly hummed, "Do they?" She thought they much rather took after Tomoharu, but that was probably because she could see a lot of him in the twins. Or it was just another thing she _wanted_ to see. There were a lot of those.

"What are their names?"

"Haruhi and Asahi."

"Ah, a girl and a boy?"

Yuri chuckled, "No, two boys." She reached towards Haruhi and stroked his fat cheeks, smiling when his eyes went in a crescent and he made a small giggle. He wasn't nearly as loud as Asahi when he laughed, but at least she'd know who was who that way.

She heard the bell on the store's front door tingle as it opened and she looked up, surprised when she saw the familiarly unfamiliar sight of orange clad Naruto. The children were in class, weren't they? She looked around for a clock and found an analog one just above her. It wasn't even two o'clock. There were at least two hours left in school.

Either way, Yuri wasn't sure what to do. Ignore him like the rest of the village? Or actually take interest in him and earn his trust, fixing what part of his childhood she could. Like she was doing with Sasuke.

"Ah, you no good kid. Are you skipping class again?" the shop owner asked the blonde child.

Naruto huffed, and shook his head before he erupted into a round of coughs. When he spoke, his voice was a croak, "No, you idiot baa-san, I'm sick if you can't tell."

The woman narrowed her eyes on him, "You aren't faking are you?"

She had to make a plan, she decided.

Yuri stood up and walked towards the boy with concern, "Take off your goggles, I'll see if you have a fever."

"Uchiha-san, you should probably get away from him if he's sick, you wouldn't want the twins to get it, would you?" The woman heeded as Naruto complied with Yuri's demands with a confused frown.

"Nonsense, he just has to watch where he coughs and sneezes," she replied curtly, placing the back of her hand to his forehead. He was burning up, she found. It probably didn't help with the heat if he was sick from that. She couldn't tell if it was just a common cold or what though—really she wasn't sure what was the same for her world and what wasn't for this. "You have a fever alright."

Naruto scowled, "I coulda' told you that much."

"Don't get smart with me," Yuri scolded him, and feigning ignorance asked, "Where are your parents if you're sick? Why did they send you in here alone?"

"Parents?" Naruto shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, "Haven't got any of those."

Yuri faked a small gasp, and then pretended for everything to all make sense a few seconds later. "Ah! You're the Uzumaki boy! I knew I recognized you from somewhere."

Naruto backed away from her, his blue eyes taking her in while his frown deepened. But then his initial hesitancy left him and he said rather haughtily, "Of course you do! I'm going to be the best shinobi after all."

He seemed to be waiting for something before he started in on coughing again. It was her turn to frown. "Use your elbow, Uzumaki-kun. When you cough into the air like that germs get everywhere and give the rest of us what you have, and I have two babies over there that could catch it."

Naruto looked confused before she demonstrated the action.

"Do you live in the orphanage? Why don't they teach you these things?" Even she could hear the genuine worry in her voice. Being a mother now, she began to fret over him in that moment. Hell, she'd have done so if she wasn't a parent.

"I live in an apartment by myself," Naruto said causing her heart to pinch and her jaw to drop. _They'd removed him from the orphanage so soon? With no one to look after him?_ Yuri clenched her hands and jaw simultaneously. In response, Naruto backed even further away from her. It broke her heart the way she knew he was bound to be reading her body language.

She had to think about how life before his genin years had been. It certainly had not been good. She wondered what would have been worse, neglect as bad as his, the way her parents had ghosted her, or the act of a loving set dying as was the case for Sasuke. Either way, she connected with the boy the way she always had before, feeling that kindred spark akin to those who had suffered similar mistreatment.

"Look, nee-san, I'm just here to get cup ramen," he told her impatiently.

"Cup . . . _cup ramen?_ While sick?" She worried her fingers together.

Why the fuck was this country so shit dealing with kids? There were too many cases of neglect she knew of in this place. At least in her country it was predominantly more rare. Japan was a thousand times safer in comparison, as she was aware her situation hadn't been the usual, either. There was danger, as there is in any place seemingly, but it wasn't to this point where the worst of the world could be seen so obviously in it's neglected children.

Naruto had been a marked exception.

"Don't fret over him, Uchiha-san. He'll be just fine. The rascal always is," the store owner said, already ringing up a few of the packaged cups. This was most likely a usual occurrence for him to come here, then. Still, she didn't care for the tone of her voice.

"He has a fever, baa-san," she said turning towards the woman.

She didn't want to judge her too harshly, after all she had helped her earlier, but what was so bad about helping a child in need? Everyone in this chaotic world needed their damn heads examined if they thought that wasn't genuinely okay.

Focusing back on Naruto who was taking the convenient store bag, she began, "Where do you live, Uzumaki-kun? If you're comfortable I can bring you soup. It'll be much better for you than ramen."

"Ramen is soup, too," he replied cheekily, as if he had her there. He smiled a little and then gave a small cough before remembering to do it in his arm. He looked a tad sheepish.

"Hardly," Yuri teased, "So do you want to take my offer?"

Naruto looked at her warily, "Why would you do that? Bring me food?"

"Because you don't have anyone to properly look after you, you're running a fever, and I'm a mother hen. I can't stand seeing children left on their own. It's lonely, isn't it?"

"Uchiha-san I have your directions ready," the shop owner cut in. She struggled to keep her annoyance from her face and took the paper with genuine gratefulness, focusing on that.

"Thank you very much," Yuri said and nodded her head in respect. She blinked when she turned back to find Naruto gone.

She quickly wheeled the twins and herself outside, loathing the moment the heat wave smacked her in the face as she left, but she was rewarded when she could still see the orange clad boy walking down the street.

"Uzumaki-kun!" she called after him. He halted in his steps and slowly looked back at her with a frown until she caught up to him. "Let me cook for you," she insisted.

Uncharacteristically, he shuffled from foot to foot, his blond brows pinched. "Are you for real?"

Yuri ignored the pain the question caused her, instead rolling her eyes. "Of course I am. Did you take any medicine today?"

He flushed, using his free hand to rub at the back of his head. "Er . . . no."

"How long have you been sick, honey?" She'd never thought she'd be the type to use terms of endearments for anyone, but it felt right to use them for this boy. Almost necessary.

"Lady . . . I don't know."

She nodded, "Right, right. Of course you don't. And I wouldn't expect you to trust a stranger, of course." Oh god, she felt like a total creep. "Uh, but you do know my so—cousin. Uchiha Sasuke."

Naruto's brows drew up. "You're related to that bastard?"

She thought fondly of 'that bastard', "Yes I am. Is that a problem?"

"I guess not . . . just surprising s'all. You're a lot nicer." He coughed, this time remembering at once to cover it. She looked on with approval.

"Sasuke is dealing with a lot of personal issues at the moment, don't hold it against him if he's not very nice to you. He's—oh, what am I saying. Naruto I'll ask you this once more, would you like me to cook you some soup and bring you some medicine? I know this may seem strange now, and that we _are_ strangers, but we won't be if we get to know each other. So what do you say?"

Naruto looked at her with a myriad of emotions sweeping across his face. At first, skepticism, then caution right before it settled on disenchanted hope. Like he wasn't sure he could believe in this moment. She could have related not too long ago herself if some stranger had done the same. It had seemed, and still seemed, an unlikely occurrence for her given her station in life.

When you were girl owned by the yakuza, it was an easy thing to do, to sweep away the truth with the exchange of hands and money.

God, how fucked up these worlds they lived in truly were.

 _It takes a good man to do nothing_ , she idly quoted in her head and then swiftly corrected _, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing._

She wasn't a saint—she never would be—but she liked to think that in taking some sort of action, be it as small as offering help, that she could correct some oversight of the system. That Naruto wouldn't have to wait for Iruka to get his head out of his ass to experience some kindness from another human being. The sort that wasn't obligated and forced.

"You aren't about to poison me, are you lady? Cause I'll have you know, I have a great stomach for that sort of thing," he bluffed. He squinted his eyes at her, as if by peering closer he could see past her open sincerity.

She laughed softly, "No, I'm not. And by the way, Uzumaki-kun, the name is Yu—Hiyori."

"Yuhiyori?" he cocked his head squinting further. Damn, this kid was more suspicious than she'd thought he'd be. And of course he would be; Iruka probably hadn't even done his number on him yet.

She bit her lip at her near slip. "No, just Hiyori. Was leading in with my family name until I realized you already knew it. So, about that meal? And quit stalling, kid, these little ones are going to also need food soon."

"Ah—then," his feverish face flushed visibly, "Yes. If you don't mind . . ."

She sighed in relief. "Great!" She beamed at him and winked, "If you aren't afraid of a little poison, then follow me."

* * *

死んだ子の年を数える — shinda ko no toshi o kozaeru — Lit. To count a dead child's years. This is a proverb much like our western one about crying over spilt milk, and another Japanese proverb of "Spilled water does not return to the tray." It's akin to a useless endeavor, to think of something that will never be, such as the years after a child's death and imagining what could have been. Fruitless.

Okay, sorry for the late update and how short this one is, I had a bit of schedule going for a while but recently I got sick with pneumonia so I had to go to the hospital and I'm still dealing with the pain of the pleurisy that accompanied that. Here's to hoping I don't have anymore health issues after I'm better.

Thanks again though for all the support and comments for this story! I can never say enough how much it's appreciated and how often I smile when I read the reviews. c; Hope you enjoyed, and take care!


	18. She Spoke of Heaven, Though I Saw Hell

"You don't have to stare at me lady, I'm not gonna steal anything," Naruto grumbled, eyes narrowed in on her as if _he_ found _her_ suspicious.

Yuri sat, a bit dazed before blinking recalled memories from her head. Shaking herself, she murmured a soft apology. She hadn't meant to make him feel uncomfortable.

Watching Naruto eat . . . reminded her of someone. Someone she didn't like to think about, but someone who she might've been able to love dearly if given a second chance. So she thought, unable to not draw the comparisons, _they both smile when they eat, you can see their teeth. There's also the way their eyes crinkle._

She tried not to make it obvious, that she was unsettled, though her hands were clasped tightly and if he looked under the table he'd see them gripping at the fabric of her skirt.

Yuri had never seen it before—the fact that that girl could be so similar to him, in their annoying charm. She supposed also in how tragic both of their lives had gone and yet how strong they'd been in the face of it all. Yes, it was their strengths, how they decided to react to the bad things that happened to them. That was the same. They made her look weak.

Ah, but the difference is how it ended, no, maybe even how it began.

Naruto, the anime and manga, was ultimately made for the entertainment of youths, as such, of course there would be a happy ending. How could there not be? After all of that pain and struggle . . . . But in the real world, where stories are still fictional and it doesn't grant you powers to save yourself or your friends, bad endings do exist.

Terrible endings. Endings that make a person vomit in disgust. Endings that are still fuzzy in her head because for the longest time she'd been trying to forget.

 _Forget, forget, forget_.

"You're staring again," Naruto mumbled into his soup bowl, watching her over the rim of it.

She blinked. "Sorry, Uzumaki-san. It's just . . . you remind me of someone special to me. I keep thinking of them."

"Oh?" He sounded curious. In response, she tried to smile but it wasn't very forthcoming. Like a haze, that ending kept coming back to her. She really wished it wouldn't. She didn't like thinking of that day.

 _I wonder if I had stayed alive, if I would have ended up like that, too._

"I haven't thought of her in months," she whispered in revelation, and guilt for that splintered inside of her. _We made promises._

"Who is she? That reminds you of me?" He asked, and then looked away, hesitance making his shoulders shake. "If you don't mind me asking." Maybe he asked because he sensed how locked and held tightly this story of hers was. Maybe he was just acting shy, still wary of a stranger and how to converse with her.

Whatever it was that made him soften and be more polite, she was grateful for it. She felt like instead of being pried open, there were delicate hands reaching inside, curious eyes simply browsing. Another similarity. Oh, right. Naruto's talk-no-jutsu. It was honestly almost like a passive skill he'd had all his life. Why he was able to get away with so much shit, like vandalism and and hoodlum-ism.

Maemi had been like that, too.

"I had a . . . friend, her name was Maemi. She ate like you, smiled like you. I miss her."

* * *

 **聞いて極楽見て地獄**

* * *

Yuriko used to live with four other girls. Kazane, Rikku, Shinon, and . . . Maemi.

She'd never been very close with either of them aside from one, and she wouldn't really call their relationship a friendship per se. Actually she wouldn't call her relationship with any of the girls a friendship. It felt like a bitter rivalry, or more often, an unwanted sisterhood. And well, Maemi had been the glue that stuck them haphazardly together.

"You should smile more, Yuri," Maemi said often, and rudely never used neither her full name nor an honorific. Had it been her foreign features that'd make her think that was okay? Yuriko had never been sure, and it used to irritate her. Didn't change the fact Maemi had always addressed her in this way, and would always familiarly touch her arm while laughing carelessly.

Careless was a good descriptor for the girl in question. It was like nothing ever worried her. She simply . . . smiled.

From the moment they had met at the tender age of twelve and to the very bitter end of her life, Yuri could only say her first impression of the girl was that she was an idiot. She laughed. She grinned. She joked around and she ignored Yuriko's blank slate reactions. Such things weren't often regarded as idiotic by the general populous but in their situation, she couldn't help but think it was.

They had next to no freedoms, they were the property of men who committed crimes for a living and were highly organized, and could ruin anyone's life if they so wanted. They'd already been ruined the day they were bought and sold, and it would only get worse as they grew older, more beautiful, more experienced, _legal_. For now they were the puppets of sick freaks who liked to their rocks off with little girls.

They were being _groomed_.

For Yuriko, there was no humor in that aside from when she could see the irony in living at all.

And yet Maemi, stupid, idiotic Maemi, would smile as if the life they lived was a pleasant one.

It wasn't, and Maemi had to have been reminded of that fact each time the girl was taken. Over and over, over and over.

It wasn't until late at night, in the small room they all shared, that Maemi surprised her.

She and the others were talking, hushed in case Sachi, the woman that "looked" after them all, was around and could hear them.

"I'm not broken," Maemi insisted. "And neither are you three. Really, do I look like I'm not intact? I swear to you, I'm all here. Even if they took my limbs, I'd still be all here, because the me who is _me_ , it untouchable. So don't worry, okay? You aren't a bad person, and you aren't someone who is broken or who has a stained soul. Don't give them the satisfaction, okay, Kazane-chan?"

Yuriko noted the quiet sniffling and pretended she couldn't hear. She stared at the wall, painted in twilight, wondering at Maemi's audacity.

"You aren't broken until you _allow_ them to break you. When you accept that this is your lot in life. You can't do that, okay? This isn't the end for us. Just a pit stop, a speed bump, okay? It's okay, okay?"

As always, Yuriko was out of the loop when Maemi addressed their lot. She wondered if that meant Maemi thought that _she,_ Ueda Yuriko, was broken. Maybe not the others because those three were relatively new to the house and would likely be given as a gift to some rich Chinese man as some plaything. But Yuriko? It wouldn't surprise her if Maemi thought she had given up in life.

It didn't really matter.

Yuriko didn't exactly know how all of them got into this situation, but they were all underage and without their real family so it often made her wonder. Not that she'd ask. Despite their shared experience, Yuriko could never bring herself to learn more about them. To open up to another or to let someone else open themselves up to her. Seemed risky.

At the time, she reasoned it was safer that way.

If even her own father could turn the cheek to her predicament and her mother could forget her in her haste to get out of the country, then what was the point of forming relationships with others? People were designed to look out for themselves and damn the rest of them. Each and every one of the girls she lived with would sooner stab her in the heart if it meant being free. Yuriko wasn't an exception. She could see herself doing the same.

The Spider's Thread came to mind and she wondered if she was in a web. Pictured it. Could see it vividly, even against the night tinted walls.

"It _will_ be okay, got it?" Maemi said resolutely. Yuriko turned onto her side and could see by way of a night light the shaking silhouette of the fourteen year old and Maemi gently holding and rubbing the back of her. Then she whispered it again, "It will be okay."

Yuriko didn't know where Maemi got the gall to reassure Kazane that way. It felt like they were dealt a life sentence, and of course that meant it _wouldn't_ be okay. It would _never_ be okay.

It had been four years for the both of them; really they should have been closer by then since the two had always been a constant in this life. Where other girls were shipped off to god knows where, Junichiro always kept them. He'd explained that they were a set, almost like polar opposites, that he couldn't imagine them being separated. The sick bastard. Just didn't want to get rid of his two top selling girls.

So knowing this, knowing that Maemi had it just as bad as her—how could she . . . how could she say that?

"B-but—" Kazane warbled, and Yuriko turned back onto her other side so she wouldn't have to see the stupidity taking place behind her. Still, she could hear it.

"Shh, shh. Think, one day this'll just be a fever dream. It'll be something that happened to someone else, someone unfortunate but someone else. One day we'll get out there and we'll make new names for ourselves and we'll choose cool professions and we'll see the rest of the world doing it. Oh, like you could be a girl named Janette, I bet Yuri could teach you English and we could travel Europe and the Americas. It'll be so much fun, okay?"

"Are you sure?" Shinon asked, doubtful. She was the youngest of their group, and had yet to be touched, in fact she wouldn't be until she was Kazane's age which wouldn't be for another year. Kazane was still inconsolable, but her sobbing had dimmed to a murmur of sniffling. This was probably the worst night of her life. Yuriko could relate.

"Of course. We're people, we have the autonomy to do whatever we want."

"If that's so true then why are we here and not, I don't know, _disneyland_?"

Yuriko grit her teeth to the grating sound of Maemi's soft laughter. "Because we aren't ready to take our leap of faith yet. Have you ever heard of Soren Kierkegaard?"

"No?" Rikku murmured, the quiet, solemn girl chiming in.

Though the both of them shared the trait of making as little noise as possible, Rikku did so with a genuine shyness towards people. Yuriko's was done with all bitterness and a loathing for every single thing around her. She seldom acknowledged that the things she disliked existed. And it was only when she was forcefully confronted with the harsh reality that she would react at all.

"He's a philosopher—"

Kazane giggled, "Are you on about that again? I swear, all you talk about is philosophy."

"Well philosopher's say some pretty eye opening things!" Maemi whisper yelled. "Anyways, as I was _saying_ , he's the man that popularized the term, 'a leap of faith'. You know, to do something you're afraid to do. He says, 'Leap of faith, yes, but only after reflection.' Soren Kierkegaard also says that life is an experience that must be lived, not a problem to be solved—"

"That's the dumbest shit I've heard," Yuriko found herself murmuring. Silence followed.

"Well—"

"Can you just shut the hell up and sleep? We have school tomorrow." She winced at her own coarse tone, but remained resolute.

"He says 'trouble is the common denominator of the living, it is the great equalizer'," Maemi said.

"What so you feel equal because you suffer? Because we're all living and breathing? Because we all die at the end?" Yuriko scoffed. "If we're talking about the experience of life itself, then we _aren't_ all the same. The only thing we have in common _then_ is that we're all just tiny specs of existences in a too big world in an expanding universe that might decide to collapse at any moment."

"But we all are equal in that sense," Maemi defended. "And isn't it a comfort? All of this _will_ end. Someway, s-somehow." Her voice tapered off, confidence shaken.

But then she added, "'The only intelligent tactical response to life's horrors is to laugh defiantly at it'."

Yuriko found she couldn't scoff at that. It made far too much sense as for why Maemi was the way she was.

"How do you remember all this?" Rikku asked, her voice as soft as a petal.

"Before my mother died, she gave me this book . . . I still have it if you want to read it too, but well, I've probably gone over it more than a hundred times." Maemi chuckled. "It's like my bible if I were Christian. The book itself is about western philosophy. It's wildly different to our own, and I think Yuri would be actually interested in it if she wasn't pretending to hate everything."

That she did scoff at.

"I would very much like that," the young girl replied. Yuriko felt their gazes at her back.

"Now, sleep," Yuriko reminded them, half tempted to smother them all to do just that. She was stuck dealing with this uncomfortable irritation in her chest.

But instead of sleeping, Maemi said this, "Yuri, I wish you'd smile more."

* * *

 **聞いて極楽見て地獄**

* * *

"Fuck off," Yuriko growled.

"You've been in such a bad mood lately," Maemi noted, and then sighed, her arms crossed and her dark brows drew inwards. "I'm sorry we kept you up last night. But Kazane needed us, y'know?"

She had nothing to say to that, so she simply flipped her notes open of the days lectures and ignored the other girl. Why she tried in school was beyond her, but at least it was something to do. The girls only went to school in the first place for the purpose of head counts. Yakuza money could buy many things, even the cooperation and complete silence of the police at times, but it was easier to deal with things if everything all looked legal.

Underage girls not attending school? Suspicious. And really, in their situation, Yuriko and Maemi were lucky in that they were even allowed to attend high school—one very close to their den of operation, but a high school nonetheless. Middle school was often where the least liked girls were stopped in terms of schooling and then they were put to work.

Why they didn't just run away if they were free to walk the streets? You don't want to know. Terrible things happened to those who tried to run. Why didn't they call the police or make some sort of public splash? Yuriko shivered just thinking about the consequence of trying _that_.

Either way they made it nearly impossible to go to the police by making them complicite in many other crimes not just involving prostitution. Yuriko had done a few things she wasn't proud of all in the name of survival, and at the time she'd been too short sighted and stupid to know where it was heading. Still, she had been alive. There was that at least.

Nonplussed, Maemi continued, but unlike all of the times they interacted this way in that Yuriko refused to interact, the girl actually grew uspet. Maemi grumbled underneath her breath and she set her arms akimbo before speaking louder. "I know you think I'm a total idiot."

Yuriko didn't respond, simply kept overlooking her assignments.

"I know exactly why you think that way, but I'll have you know I see more than you think. I'm just not _disillusioned_ like you. I know there's more to this fucked up life we're living."

That had her blinking. Not once in the four years they'd known each other had Maemi ever cussed. She just never did it.

"You—ugh! You're the dumbass here! Not me!"

Later, Yuriko would agree. She'd agree with tears in her eyes, streaming down her cheeks, the whites of hospital sheets in unfamiliar hands gripping them tighter and tighter in disbelief.

Not then, however. Then, Yuriko did what she had always done before when she was insulted—she flipped Maemi the bird.

Maemi gasped, "Rude! I know what that means, you butthole. Now talk to me, please? I'm tired of it! This silent treatment you always give me. We're . . . goddamn it we're—we're sisters! For better or for worse, we're in this life together. We should take care of one another, y'know?"

Yuriko, unused to such an adamant Maemi sat in her chair surprised, her workbook slipping from her fingers and landing on the desk with a small _thud_.

It was the first time, yes, it was definitely the first time, at aged sixteen, that Yuriko had felt a spark of something. Something she could barely recall even existed within her. She hadn't even known what to call it then.

But the Yuri that sat across from Naruto, watching him slurp at the broth of her soup as she prattled on about this ghost of a girl she once knew, had a word for it.

It had been warmth.

* * *

聞いて極楽見て地獄— kiite gokuraku mite jigoku— Lit. Hearing heaven, seeing hell. This proverb is said to bring light to the difference between what's often perceived visually and what can be felt underneath. Like the dichotomy of beauty and lack of virtue. Most similar to our western, "too good to be true," saying. But people deceive themselves with what's presented anyways.

I'm so sorry it's been so long! First off for those who have been worried, I'm much recovered in health! I've been a bit busy though with this new job I got, and kind of . . . general lack of motivation to write. I struggled with this chapter, mainly because I had qualms with how far I should go in Yuri's backstory, but I decided it was necessary, it would be lacking if I _didn't_ go into it. We'll learn much more going forward, dear readers! By the way, speaking of readers, THANK YOU SO MUCH! So many people reviewed and continued to follow and favorite even during such a long hiatus. I'm sincerely so flattered and happy there are people who find my work valuable, even if only slightly. So thank you.


	19. To Hold A Toothpick Like A Sword

_Talk-no-jutsu is no joke_ . . . It was the only thing that could explain why she said anything to Naruto about a girl who hadn't ever existed in this world in the first place. But there was something light and fuzzy that was left behind when she finished. She didn't give him anything explicit, didn't tell the truth about her circumstances, but it felt nice just describing what that girl had been like.

Maemi had existed, and that had to be enough for her.

Haruhi fussed in her arms, and the clock struck three in the afternoon, signaling the end of the school day. Sasuke would be home soon.

"Why can't you see her anymore?" Naruto asked; he'd long been done with his meal, and was a surprisingly good listener for how much of a talker she'd seen he had been. Or would be. "You keep mentioning her in past tense but what happened?"

"She's . . ." Yuri didn't know how to respond.

"Was she an Uchiha?"

Surprisingly, Yuri admired that he didn't pussy-foot around the clan name, even how he subtly acknowledged it.

It made her feel more awkward when people refused to talk about it, made Hiyori's dead family feel like a dirty secret to be swept under the rug and—ah, she supposed that was the real reason she finally felt a bit lighter for having talked about Maemi. The Uchiha clan was to Hiyori what Maemi was to Yuriko.

And it forced her to admit that it was time. It had been long enough, and she was now more prepared than ever to accept what had happened.

She would never be happy with it, would never be able to change it. But it _had_ happened. And she accepted that.

Wishing she could be more honest she replied, "No, she had been an average civilian . . . but I think if given the chance, she would have been an awesome shinobi. To be honest she would have made an awkward Uchiha." The thought caused her to chuckle. She'd have been just as picked on as much as Hiyori had been. As much as Obito.

No, if Maemi had been reborn in this world, like Yuri had been, she would have made a fantastic Uzumaki instead. The girl would have liked having red hair, it'd been something Maemi had always commented on, wanting to express herself in vibrant ways. She had adored fashion, loved picking outfits for everyone and making them act as if they were models on a runway at her leisure. She had been a funny girl with a brave smile, and had done her best in a horrific situation. She had been beautiful.

Since it'd been so long, she didn't expect it to hurt as much as it does coming out, her next words. "As for why I can't see her anymore . . . well, I can't see her anymore because she's dead."

 _And it was my fault._

"You know, nee-chan, you aren't what I'd expect," Naruto mumbled, and then coughed a bit into his shoulder, pointedly looking at her as he did so.

"I have to agree, you aren't what I expected either." _I didn't know I would be as vulnerable as everyone else to you._ She didn't regret opening up, however, though he probably thought she was a weirdo.

"I should probably get going," he coughed again, which made her think, _fat chance I'll let that happen_. She would agree normally, knowing Sasuke would _not_ take well to the idea of this certain blonde boy being in their kitchen, but since Naruto was sick, she didn't like the idea even more leaving Naruto to take care of himself. She hated the thought of him feeling lonely, especially when sick. She knew keenly what it felt like.

Yuri wrung her hands together. Maybe it was a new obsession of hers, taking care of children that weren't her own—and wait, no, scratch that. They _were_ hers. Each of them had become hers the moment she laid her eyes on them.

"You don't have to leave, Uzumaki-san."

"Isn't Sasuke coming home soo—"

"Yori, what's this bastard doing here?"

 _Speak of the devil_.

Yuri didn't look towards the raven haired child she knew would be standing behind her. Haruhi was fussing in her arms, and it was near time for the twins feeding time.

"Don't use that language around your cousins," she instead chided, and offering a warm smile for Naruto, stood from her seat at the dining table to set the dishes in the sink, Haruhi on her hip. She couldn't get anymore domestic if she tried. Asahi made loud giggling noises from where he was laying in his little small crib she'd gotten for the kitchen. He'd been giggling at Naruto all afternoon, the latter making funny faces when he thought Yuri wasn't looking.

"Yori, you can't just—Yori," Naruto snickered the moment Yuri sends a tight glare towards her ward. Sasuke groaned, irritation puffing his chest and hardening his stance.

"I don't understand this dislike you boys have for one another."

"Wait you were aware we're sworn enemies?" Naruto chimed in surprise.

She frowned, "Of course."

"I thought you were just being nice thinking I was just his classmate . . . " Naruto murmured to himself. Ah. It tugged at her, knowing he had been anticipating a big reveal that would turn her against him. Little did he know, there were no big reveals for her to witness. Everything was obvious on her board of chess, the game having finished before it began.

"You're sick and have no one looking after you, I wouldn't care if you were the nine-tailed fox, Uzumaki-san. I'd have still offered you the soup. Which by the way, we have a spare bedroom you can use for the night, your fever still hasn't broken." To be sure, she came to stand at his side, pressing her hand against his forehead. It was still as hot as a furnace to her, and she didn't miss the flush to his face, nor the sweat that stuck to her fingers when she pulled them away.

"Yori if he's sick, even more of a reason for him to go the hell away," Sasuke grumbled, and snatched Haruhi from her arm, making as if he could protect the babies from the germs just by his intense gaze alone.

"Shut up," Naruto mumbled heartlessly in his defence. He looked like he would keel over any minute. "And it's okay Nee-chan, I can get home by myself. I'm used to it." _Used to it_. It began to ring in her head like a gong.

That sealed it.

"No you are not, now come on, I have medicine and a glass of water with your name on it." He resisted at first, that is until she invaded his personal space and nearly hauled him up herself.

"You're so heavy for a kid," she grumbled, taking some of his weight.

"You're small for an adult," he shot back, acting peeved. She didn't miss it though, his face telling her all she needed to know. He couldn't even look at her.

 _Everyone is a damn tsundere these days, no one can be honest._

She helped him to the spare bedroom and into the bed that had been meant for Sasuke, but went unused and forgotten when they'd decided to just sleep next to each other. Now Yuri is grateful she didn't just decide to turn the room into an office or an extra storage room.

"Are you comfy?" she asked, fluffing the blanket on him.

"It's hot," he murmured; there was moisture in his eyes as he said it. She couldn't help it then, the soft caress she gives his face. There'd been a time where she loathed skin contact, knew none of it would come with good intentions and fearing when it ever did.

Still, more than torture or assault, Yuri had once feared kindness. Maybe that was why Maemi had terrified her.

But now she knew better, knew how reassuring depraved skin would find sincere affection.

"Sasuke is so damn lucky," Naruto mumbled drowsily, she didn't think he was even aware he had spoken it aloud. "Hate him."

"Don't go to sleep yet, you still need your medicine," she told him sternly, and stood from where she'd been crouched attending him. When she stepped from the room to get said medicine, Sasuke caught her.

"Yori," he started.

"Sasuke," she smiled warmly.

"You don't _have_ to pick up strays off the street. Alley cats can defend themselves."

"Sasuke, I love you dearly, but I'm not leaving a child to be sick alone."

The fight left the irritated boy at once, realizing the futility in his conquest to get Naruto to leave, and instead he grumbled, "I get it, it's not in your nature," before heading off in the direction of the babies. She shrugged, unable to correct him.

It was in her nature no longer.

When she came back to Naruto, he was only half awake, mumbling things incoherently. He looked uncomfortable, shifting and turning in bed, his expression pinched.

"Come on, I have medicine, it will make you feel better, I promise."

She had him sit up, gently coaxing him to swallow the bitter sweet substance with a watchful gaze. His face twisted in disgust and then he surprised her when he began to cough. Concern governed her actions, unable to help her physical need to comfort him by rubbing at his back as they waited for his sickness to settle. She hated it, seeing how weak it left him.

Glad she'd had the foresight to bring a glass of water with the medicine, anticipating the taste needing to be washed down, she wordlessly hands him the cup. Naruto refused to meet her gaze, the coughing fit having brought tears to his eyes.

Still, he mumbled out in a gravelly tone, "I think you're the nicest person in existence, Nee-chan."

"There are kinder people," she assured him, thinking of Maemi.

"No, you're definitely the nicest."

She hummed, pretending not to notice it when the tears slipped off his chin.

* * *

 **武士は食わねど** **高楊枝**

* * *

Of course, Sasuke wasn't a very happy camper that night. He chose to ignore that Naruto even existed, which was an easy thing to do when Naruto was sleeping his sickness off soundly. Throughout the night she tended towards the boy, replacing wet rags and providing basic comforts.

It made her angry, knowing that in some universe where she hadn't been shoved into Hiyori's dead body, Naruto would have had to deal with this all alone.

She wished it would be something she could just up and do, adopt the boy, even if Sasuke wouldn't like it. But fucking politics had to be a thing; it'd look suspicious if the remaining Uchiha clan took in the kyuubi's jinchuriki, the situation being as it was. They'd kick up a big fuss about it, even though he'd been completely neglected and mistreated in the first place. If she ever saw Hiruzen's stupid face again she'd probably end up doing something she'd regret. Like try to kick him in the balls.

 _Stupid fucking man._ _Can't wait for that fucker to drop and Tsunade to take his place_. It was callous, but it was also how she felt.

"Come over anytime you want something to eat, just no ramen. I have a feeling I wouldn't approve the amount you eat as it is."

Naruto laughed, sticking out his tongue. "Nee-chan, you don't even wanna know."

Yuri shuddered, but still she grinned at him. Naruto looked healthy again and for that she was glad. She just wished it wouldn't be creepy to kidnap and dote on him for the rest of his life. If only.

"Do you usually take random kids back to your place?"

Kakashi's voice took her by surprise, scant moments after Naruto made quick work of escape. She jumped a bit, nearly jamming her elbow in the man's stomach when he touched her shoulder. It instantly had her mood sour.

"Sorry, thought you heard me coming." _Liar_. "So about the kid?"

"I didn't," she responded with a bit of bite to her words. It was thicker when she added, "And only those orphaned through tragedy and made victims through a system that would rather see them forgotten, yes."

The only real response to her words on initial impact that she could tell was the slight clicking of his jaw where his mask usually was.

"Sorry for asking," he said seconds after, good naturedly putting his arms up in surrender. As if that would placate her. She knew he wasn't actually apologetic. Of course it was a little suspect she was consorting with Naruto. He probably hadn't expected to see that boy walk out of her apartment in a million years.

Whatever. She was tired of liars.

"See you around," she said in departure and headed back into her place.

* * *

 **武士は食わねど** **高楊枝**

* * *

Yuriko had had _some_ friends.

Friends who didn't know much about her background, but people she considered friends enough. They were the people she talked about anime and manga with. They were people who she could feel normal with, at least for a fraction of her time. They were the ground she stood on. The only reason she wasn't as messed up as she could be, honestly.

"Yuriko, did you read the update?" Taka asked, tapping the eraser of his pencil against a blank sheet of notebook paper.

She shook her head, flashes of the night before in her head before she could help it. "I wasn't able to."

"Ah, that sucks. Your dad being a dick again?"

She shrugged, "Something like that."

Her classmates all assumed she had something of an abusive family situation, that or she was a bit of a whore. She was never surprised when someone was up front with either assumptions. How else was one to excuse the bruises that were too dark to hide with concealer? Blushed red marks on her neck that she'd visibly shudder when someone eyed. Bruises made by tightened fists too strong for her fight at her wrists. Scars lining the parts of her thigh that was sometimes visible when her skirt shifted out of the way.

No one ever said anything, though they all thought about it. Especially the one who wore it all.

But Taka was different. Different in a way that confused her, but also made her feel . . . safe. Cared for. He didn't seem to believe the rumors that she fucked randoms on the side, at least he never seemed like he did, and he was always trying to make her laugh.

"If you ever want, you can stay at my place if it gets too bad. My mom is never home when I am, you know she works as a hostess so it'd be easy to hide you there. We can watch anime all night and play video games, too. Not like your dad would care, right?"

Yuriko watched the bounce of his pencil.

"I can't."

She wondered what Taka thought was going on, really. If all he assumed was an abusive relationship between a father and a daughter. Wondered what he'd say if she revealed herself to him. She wanted to trust that disarming smile of his . . . and she wanted to know what his expression would be, the curious part of her itching at the truth behind her lips.

To her response, the teenage boy who really had no clue of what was about to be unloaded upon him, pouts.

This was during a time she hadn't been so jaded she couldn't feel romantic affection, so this had only endeared him to her. Yuriko had what most people would call, a crush. She will question this into her next life, why she had liked an idiot.

"You can't or you won't?"

"I—" she frowned. "I _can't_."

"Is he hurting you?" Taka asked, catching her off guard. Nobody had ever been so cavalier about this topic to her. It surprised her into what she'd call then weakness, but really now that she thinks of it, was really the path she had been too afraid to continue to walk.

Yuriko had been quite sensitive at the time. She had been fifteen and used to entertain fantasies of being saved by cute classmate friends who shared the same interests and made her feel _loved_. This was before she realized she was completely disenchanted by anything that could be found within her world and normality had sounded like actual magic to her.

So instead of telling the prick that she was uncomfortable with his question, she turned to him, wary of their classmates ears and leaned in to whisper. "Would you still like me if he was?"

Taka had the intelligence _not_ to unpack that in the middle of the classroom.

Instead his eyes filled with an emotion she had never seen on a person before, but felt an instinctive dislike for it. Somehow it made her feel small and weak. Now she can recall, it was pity swimming in his eyes.

No one had given her genuine pity before. It had been a surprisingly painful thing to bare.

Later, when the last bell had rang and she was busy ignoring Maemi's puppy eyes across the room and her obvious desire to be played with, Taka approached her.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

And . . . she had. (She also should have _continued_ speaking about it. To anyone that would listen. All it would have took was the right ears to hear it.)

So she led him to a quiet place in one of the closed off classrooms, and she told him about it all.

For some reason she expected him to be on her side, to want to continue to help her because they were friends and he'd sounded so supportive before. But when she'd stopped talking, and he was processing it all, she could see it on his face. The moment when he knew what his response would be.

And looking back, of course he had. His mom was a sex worker, too, when she wasn't being a hostess, and you don't have that sort of background and _not_ understand what having the Yakuza own you meant. He knew he could do nothing for her, and thus he had to pretend. And really, it was for the best.

Thus, Yuriko didn't know why she was so surprised though when his response was this:

"Why would you lie about something like that?"

And she replied, faked laughter escaping on painful, confused exhales, "Ahaha, I wonder that, too."

Yuriko had to smile through it, those innocent feelings of romance that had just begun to take shape among the rough edges of her heart dying in her chest, right alongside that laughter.

The disbelief had only further sealed her into silence.

* * *

 **武士は食わねど** **高楊枝**

* * *

Yuri froze in place, eyes wide and breath wound tight in a ball in her throat.

"Ueda-san," the cloaked form greeted.

She swallowed the lump down, leaving the breath that had been trapped there to come out in a quick burst.

"Y-you," she grounded out with gritted teeth. "You shouldn't _be_ here."

He was going to ruin it all. Ruin everything she'd worked too damn hard for.

"You have interesting things in that head of yours."

"Yeah? And? You've known this for a while now," since the day her sons—

She felt fear spike itself into her when she noticed he was holding one of her them, Asahi's innocent smile beaming at her from the moment he'd spotted her. He reached for her, light baby giggles leaving his bubbly mouth.

Yuri couldn't help it. She whimpered. She'd only ever heard a similar sound come from her once.

" _Please_ ," she got down on her knees immediately, unashamed to beg. "Please don't hu—"

"I'm not going to."

Itachi shifted the infant in his arms, and she was caught by the distinct youth in his face as he looked at her child. His face, and this is what had her in true surprise . . . softened.

"I want what you want for them."

He walked to where she was still frozen, and far more gently than she had expected of him, guided her by the shoulder to a standing position. She managed to swallow the sounds of fear that threatened to leave her, and then they stood at the same height, eye to eye.

"Thank you, Ueda-san." He trained his gaze on Asahi. "For fixing my mistakes. And for loving him."

She was speechless, unable to do a thing when Itachi pressed her son into her arms, and only by the instinctive strength to keep her son protected had her holding him in a sure grip.

Yuri can't say that this is the most shocking moment of her life, that belongs to when she woke up in this universe, but it's certainly up there. Who could say that _the_ Uchiha Itachi _thanked_ them.

When he made to leave, she broke from her shell of inaction.

"Itachi, you can't just _leave_."

"I'm not going to tell anyone about your other life," Itachi said with an imperceptible frown. As if _that_ was her problem.

"No, no! Itachi!" and she gasped as his name left her lips. She felt cold, conflicted and uncertain. He stopped, looking back at her with an impassive face. She stuttered, "I-I can't be the only one to make things better. S-sasuke could use your help!"

He looked at her doubtfully, and it's only a miracle that she was made an Uchiha that she can even decipher that in his flat expression.

She tried to gather her thoughts quickly, things she'd imagined saying to him at the off chance that they ever met again. Things she couldn't do on her own and was afraid to.

And what came first was this, "Do you really see Orochimaru being anything safe to leave Sasuke with in the future? I-I know he'll need to be strong," her thoughts go wild in her head. "To face Kaguya . . . and everything. You can help him, Itachi. Where I can't."

"I still have a mission to do, Ueda-san."

"D-don't _call_ me that!"

He blinked. Asahi's brow furrowed in his tell tale sign of oncoming tears. She sucked in a breath, nerves rushing through her small frame. _Settle, settle, settle_.

"What do you wish to be called?" Itachi calmly asked, his gaze open.

An embarrassing amount of her wanted him to simply deem her Hiyori, but that was probably impossible for him considering he . . . had seen _everything_. He _knew_.

He knew all about Ueda Yuriko and her awful, horrific past filled to the brim with neglect, sexual abuse and assault. Knew she'd been there to witness crimes that would cause most individuals stomachs to turn, if not outright make them vomit. Saw the way people could be played like video games, felt the way it was to be puppeted into doing the wrong thing, over and over again.

He knew exactly what brought her here.

 _("Why do you even call me that?"_

" _Yuriko ends with child. And . . . we can't be considered children anymore. So Yuri it is.")_

"Yuri." Yuri felt her cheeks warm. Claiming ownership of that name, of that person, somehow felt . . . freeing. "Call me Yuri, please."

"Yuri-san it is, then."

A weight lifted from her shoulders. The cloak of living as someone else falling at her feet, but the weight of her child reminded her at the same time that the mask that came with it would never quite leave her.

She had accepted this.

But it still felt so good.

"Thank you," she said.

Itachi looked slightly uncomfortable, resembling Sasuke when he received praise he didn't think he deserved. It reminded her that even though she disliked immensely the things Itachi had done, and that she would hate his actions for what they resulted into until her existence itself was no longer, that he was still a child. And her soft spot had _always_ been for children.

 _Fuck_ , she thought.

She shook her head of her sudden desire to pat his cheek like she would Sasuke, and blinked when a sudden worry came to her.

Other than Orochimaru, what she truly worried over was, "Do you know if Danzo was successful in taking the clans eyes?"

Itachi's soft face became sharp, his fires appeared to deepen in their crimson-hued gaze.

She was then surprised by the amount of words he would say, "His fatal mistake will be just as it had been in that story of us you read. But his end will be far more painful. Be assured the matter will be settled in a way that will be suitable; think nothing more of it."

"I—" she swallowed unsure words, "I see."

"As for your wishing for me to stay for Sasuke," the now fourteen year old shrugged. "You'll take much better care of him, and there are still many more years to go."

"I can take care of you, too."

Yuri hadn't meant to say it out loud, but instead of taking it back, she gazed at him earnestly.

A small, budding smile took over his thin lips. "You have already adopted enough troubled youths, and I still have a job to do."

And then he was gone in a pile of leaves.

The fucking bastard.

* * *

.武士は食わねど高楊枝 — bushi wa kuwanedo takayouji — Lit. Even when a samurai doesn't eat, he holds his toothpick like a lord. Bushidou refers to a samurai's code of conduct in the face of adversity. Most often used to refer to holding one's head up high even if the going gets tough.

Hi, i'm not dead. Ahaha. Sorry it's been a few months. c:


End file.
